Enemy Returned
by Palladius
Summary: The Ethereal assault on Earth was foiled by Colonel Jane Shepard. The Temple Ship taken intact, XCOM gained the capability to strike back against the Ethereals. However, Humans weren't the only species the Ethereals had set their sights on. For they were determined to make this cycle different.
1. Chapter 1

DARK SPACE

Floating in the void a fleet of starships, each one twenty kilometres in length. Waiting for the message. Waiting for their vindication for the guilt at what they had done.

The New Ones were promising. They were resourceful, technically skilled, impressive mental abilities and a strong physical body. Everything the Ethereal Ones needed to complete their task. They dared to hope. Could they be successful? Victorious, even?

Then the message came and their hopes were dashed. The New One had passed every test - even the one she wasn't meant to pass. The New Ones could not be dominated. Like the Ethereals, they were made to conquer not to cower. They were immune to the slow psionic conditioning of the Ethereal Ones, only responding to the most forceful of methods and even then not for long. There was no question about it - the New Ones were out of reach.

Devastated by their failure, the Ethereal Ones turned their eyes to other matters. They had several other species lined up for an attempt at uplifting. One was a proud race of warriors afflicted with an insidious sickness of artificial design. Another was a species trapped in space, prisoners of their own immune systems. The Ethereal Ones had to move quickly. They had less than one hundred and fifty years before the Dark Ones would return. The galaxy must be prepared at any cost.

###

XCOM HQ

"My god. The ship itself is behaving like a dying star!"

Central Officer John Bradford looked sharply over at Dr. Lieza Vahlen.

"At this distance ... the earth will be consumed."

Bradford's knuckles whitened on the control room's guardrail. Was this it? After everything XCOM had achieved was this how it ended?

He looked over at the Commander. Steven Hackett was a force of nature, his tactical genius matched only by his combat abilities. Bradford had seen the old man take down some of the most highly trained hand to hand operatives on the XCOM roster without breaking a sweat. He looked closer, trying to discern the emotion in the old man's eyes. Confidence? Or fear?

"Sir, the alien ship is in motion!"

He spun on his heel, facing the tech that had called up to him.

"What direction?"

The tech stared dumbly at him.

"What. Direction."

The fear in the man's eyes was plain to see.

"It's coming straight for us."

Reacting almost instantly, he slammed the button on the control panel that set off alarms blaring in every room in the facility.

"This is Central Officer Bradford. All combat personnel, prepare to repel a direct assault on the Hive."

He turned round to look at Commander Hackett, the old man watching the approach of the temple ship with what seemed like detached interest.

"Come on Janey. Please be you behind the stick."

That was the closest thing he had ever heard to an admission of fear from the implacable Hackett. Nevertheless it filled Bradford with a wild hope. What if it was Colonel Jane Shepard in there?

Dr. Vahlen looked at her screen with mounting amazement.

"The ship is stabilising itself! I can't explain it!"

The Temple Ship came gliding to a halt above XCOM HQ.

"Sir! Incoming transmission!"

"Put it through."

The signal beacon originated from the Temple Ship.

"Sir?"

The entire control room relaxed at the sound of Jane Shepard's voice, then tensed up again as it was followed by the sound of wet coughing.

"Sir, I'm hurt bad."

Hackett gripped the railing, jaw working as he cast around for words.

"Hang on. Stay with me, Janey."

"I'm bleeding out sir. I'm not gonna ..."

Her words were cut off by another fit of wet coughing.

"I'm not gonna make it."

Hackett spun around and pointed at the hangar, staring at Bradford.

"I want every medic available on that ship yesterday."

As Bradford scurried off to fulfil his Commander's orders Hackett turned his attention back to the matter at hand.

"It's okay Janey. Help's on the way."

There was a sound halfway between a cough and a sucking sob.

"I'm scared Dad. I don't want to die."

Bradford glanced over his shoulder in disbelief as the Skyranger delivered an army of medics up to the hovering Temple Ship. The Commander was Colonel Shepard's father? He had realised they were close, but ...

"Don't leave me Janey. Hang on, okay?"

"I ... It hurts ..."

The Control Room was silent as a tomb as a tear fell from the Commander's eye and the soft sobs of his dying daughter echoed in the empty air.

"Dad ... Take care of my squad okay? Williams deserves a promotion to Captain, Alenko is ... Ah!"

The soft cry of pain jolted the entire room. Several of the techs and operators were openly weeping, Bradford absent-mindedly fielding the status reports from the medics as they boarded the twenty kilometre long Temple Ship.

"Never mind Dad. There's a Sectoid coming to finish me off. Look after my guys, okay?"

There was a pause, only filled with gurgling breaths over the comm.

"I'll be waiting up there with Mum. See you later, Daddy."

The feed went dead and Commander Stephen Hackett broke down and wept.

###

TEMPLE SHIP

The grey skinned Sectoid scampered over to her, plasma pistol glowing an ominous green. Jane Shepard let it come. She didn't care any more. If she had really wanted she could have pulled her plasma pistol off her hip and blown the alien away but that would only prolong her lingering death.

The little creature paused by her prone form, sniffing at the gaping hole in her gut. The wound was from the Uber Ethereal's psi lance, leaving her with just enough life to stabilise the Temple Ship and park it on top of XCOM HQ. She was certain her father and the mad professors would appreciate the chance to pull the ship apart and see what made it tick.

The Sectoid clicked something in its strange language and a veritable swarm of the diminutive aliens appeared, surrounding her as they clicked at one another. A pair of Mechtoids stomped up, flanking a Sectoid Commander that started bossing the rest of the Sectoids around. Working in tandem, they shucked off the remnants of her psi-boosting armour and undersuit, the Mechtoids hefting her up and carrying her over to a device she recognised as a surgical crèche. It was then that she tried to fight, unwilling to become an alien science experiment, but it was too little, too late. She could offer no more than a hoarse cry of displeasure as they stuffed her into the surgery, unconsciousness mercifully claiming her as the surgical cutlery glittered and clattered above.

When she woke up she immediately wondered why she wasn't dead. She had seen the wound. Even with her genetically modified secondary heart there was no way she would have survived.

Opening her eyes, she looked around. She was naked aside from a mask over her mouth and nose, suspended in a gel-like substance with cuffs around her wrists and ankles. She tried to wriggle free but the cuffs held firm. Her attempts to reach out psionically were likewise unsuccessful, her mental abilities inhibited by something. After around ten minutes of fruitless struggle she gave up, instead focusing on trying to determine her location. She was in what appeared to be a stasis tank, suspended in the gel-like fluid. She could just see out, realising she was in a small room, little more than a cell, with the tank she was occupying in one corner, an alien surgery opposite her and a force field door to the side. She glanced up sharply as a Sectoid entered through the door, her gaze following the little creature back to another tank next to hers.

She found herself staring into the beady eyes of a Muton.

She cried out in shock, recoiling as the creature's eyes followed her. She could see the hate burning within them as they drilled into her vulnerable body. Without the heavy armour on the Muton was in appearance surprisingly similar to a human. This one was apparently male. The obvious difference was the alien head with a narrow jaw that jutted out and down. The creature's muscled chest lacked nipples and instead of the six pack of abdominal muscles on a Human the creature had two rows of five hard muscles, a single smooth band of muscle running vertically between them. The creature also lacked a bellybutton or any form of hair and its limbs all terminated in wickedly clawed digits. The creature was half as tall again as any Human and judging by its tense, corded muscles the bastard was doing its level best to rip itself out of its restraints and tear her limbs off.

The fluid in the Muton's tank drained and the tank hinged open, the entire backplate sliding out with the Muton still cuffed securely to it. The Sectoid briefly glanced around before hitting a button, the backplate reclining and bringing the Muton to a horizontal position. From somewhere the grey skinned alien produced a tulip-like bowl and dipped a utensil into it, producing a purple-grey paste which it held up to the Muton's mouth. The creature never took its evil looking eyes off her as the Sectoid fed it the paste, gulping each mouthful down quickly with something approximating a grimace. The monster's facial expressions were surprisingly similar to those of a Human. Glancing over the Muton, she noticed a pattern of plasma burns all up the creature's right side, the flesh charred horribly.

Once the Muton had finished what she assumed was its meal, the Sectoid held the mask up to its face. The Muton obediently pushed its narrow jaw into the mask, a tube connecting to it as the plate it was cuffed to slid back into the stasis tank. The tank filled up again, the gel making the creature's movements surprisingly sluggish. Throughout the entire process it had not once looked away from her. She had killed plenty of Mutons, barely seen as a speck of colour through the scope of her plasma sniper before she ended their lives. Never had one unnerved her quite as much as the one she was sharing a room with.

She let out a yelp as her body sagged into the cuffs, only just realising that the gel in her tank had drained as it opened, her own body being lowered to horizontal as she shivered in the cold air aboard the vessel. It was no surprise that most G-modded soldiers forwent their trademark sleeveless armour in favour of warmer designs when aboard alien vessels. The Sectoid pulled the mask off her face, the faint musk of unwashed Muton assailing her nostrils as soon as she was exposed to the cabin air, and waved the utensil in her face. She noticed that the utensil was an oval loop of wire on a handle, a film of paste suspended by its own surface tension in the gap. It looked revolting, and judging by what she had seen earlier even the Muton found it disgusting, but she was very, very hungry. After about thirty seconds of internal debate she gave in to the Sectoid, who had looked like he was about to try and force it between her lips.

The taste burst against her tongue. It was surprisingly pleasant, a spicy tang overlying the base flavour which was like nothing she had tasted before. The closest comparison she could come up with was sour cream and tomato salsa. Now the trick was to get it off the spoon and down her neck.

After about thirty seconds of manipulating the utensil in various ways, she figured out a technique. By poking her tongue through the wire loop, she could break the hold of surface tension, the paste rolling itself into a goopy ball that she could then swallow. She had ten mouthfuls of the paste before the Sectoid removed the bowl, gingerly probing at her abdomen. Outside of the stasis tank the wound had started to sting again and the Sectoid's examination was aggravating the frayed nerves. She hissed in displeasure as the Sectoid finished its examination and tapped a control panel, sending her back into the stasis tank. As the gel flooded around her body she glanced across at the Muton. The hulking alien seemed to be asleep. She had just enough time to wonder why the creature would take a snooze with its mortal enemy four metres away before the sedative kicked in.

###

TEMPLE SHIP

The Temple Ship had been under XCOM's possession for almost a month and over half the ship was still unexplored. The Hive had been massively expanded to accommodate the enormous influx of scientists and engineers, and the soldiers needed to guard them. Each of the new personnel had to undergo a lengthy induction progress before they could take the oath of Vigilo Confido and become part of the team that had saved the planet. The scientists had already uncovered an enormous wealth of alien technological goodies, including a device that could amplify low level psionic gifts, meaning that anyone with the tiniest indication of the gift could have their talent amplified to the point where they were fully capable combat psionics. Using the new screening technique every single soldier who passed the rigorous recruitment process of XCOM was strong willed enough to gain some level of psionic gift, although the 'first phase' psionics tended to be far stronger. Another goodie was a machine designed to artificially synthesise Meld, vastly expanding the capabilities of the base's genetics and cybernetics division and making it economical to add more than one G-mod to a binding site. Of course, there was one outstanding issue.

When the Über Ethereal had fallen to a bolt of plasma from Colonel Shepard's sniper rifle the neural feedback had killed every Ethereal left on the planet but had left the remaining aliens unscathed, if leaderless. Without the guidance of the Ethereals, Cyberdiscs, Seekers and Sectopods were rendered inert, Chryssalids went into berserk killing sprees and Thin Men followed their hardwired programming to blend in to society, going to ground in dense urban centres using unsuspecting civilians as concealment. The Mutons, and their genetic cousins the Floaters, were the most difficult matter to deal with, being rounded up, disarmed and moved to an enormous ghetto cum prison camp in the Sahara desert. The Sectoids? They fixed things.

It seemed that when not directly instructed to by an Ethereal, the Sectoids were mentally programmed to act as autonomous repair drones, regardless of whom possessed them. This trait had caused great consternation at first but the XCOM operatives had learned to stay out of their way as they carried out their duties, restoring the Temple Ship to its former state. They even cleared up and kept the Human lab equipment working, and one engineer swore up and down that a Sectoid had administered first aid when he cut his hand on a power tool.

For Psi Specialist and assault lieutenant Jacob Taylor, the job of rounding up the latest group of Mutons was an exceptionally boring one. Like most XCOM personnel, he had several reasons to hate Mutons on a personal level and yet he couldn't bring himself to. They just looked so damn lost without an Ethereal to tell them what to do. The Muton in front of him growled half-heartedly as it deposited its plasma rifle and grenade on the pile of alien weaponry, the lame attempt at a threat display lost on the lieutenant who had once took on a Muton Berserker with nothing but a combat knife and held it off long enough for his teammate to put a laser beam between its eyes. The next one along was a Floater. Seeming to be the top half of a very diminutive Muton fused with a jet turbine, the Floaters always unnerved Jacob. They were an unpleasant reminder of the depths to which a species could sink. The Floater dropped its plasma carbine on the pile, then boosted over to where the Chinook helicopter waited to truck the latest load out to Sahara Camp. Jacob knew that the camp was only a temporary solution, just as he knew the Muton population would be a major social problem for a good while. He just hoped the solution didn't involve a nuclear bomb.

The next Muton along was an Elite, clad in distinctive red armour with a heavy plasma slung on his back. The alien went for a full on threat display, roaring and pounding his chest, making the four XCOM soldiers manning the checkpoint step back and raise their weapons. The Muton settled down, unslinging his weapon and brushing an imaginary speck of dirt off the handle before gently setting it down on the pile. Jacob nodded as his superior, Major Alenko, signalled for him to keep an eye on the Elite. They didn't want any firefights breaking out today.

Alenko, Taylor knew, was still grieving for the loss of his commander, Colonel Shepard. Taylor could sympathise. He had served in one of her squads several times and he knew what an inspirational leader she was. Alenko had always carried a torch for Colonel Shepard despite her repeated attempts to gently let him down.

As the next Muton sullenly chucked his weapon on the pile, Jacob sighed. It was going to be another long day.

###

MIGRANT FLEET

Tali'Zorah nar Rayya screamed in terror as the sinister disc shape skimmed through the fleet again, loosing a volley of green projectiles at the engines of the Rayya. The whole deadly ballet was carried out in silence, the vacuum of space concealing the sound of the unidentified contacts. Tali's brain filled in the whooshing sound of the blue light emanating from the bottom of the disc shaped ship and the hissing of the green bolts of energy. She didn't need to imagine the booming or the entire ship rattling as the Rayya's engines were obliterated and she, like so many of her kin, slowly fell to the surface of the planet.

The military elements of the Migrant Fleet had been disabled quickly and efficiently, forced to perform controlled crashes on the planet below. She had known something was off when the star charts insisted the planet they were orbiting wasn't there. The entire fleet went into orbit around the rock at Admiral Xen's insistence while she took some readings. The results had been amazing. The planet seemed to have been designed for Quarian habitation. The ecosystem had no pathogens, no toxins or for that matter nothing which could aggravate their immune system. The entire thing was covered in what looked like an ancient city overwhelmed by jungle, the flora and fauna miraculously agreeable to the Quarian presence.

Of course, it had been a trap.

The strange ships hadn't even given them a chance. Before they knew what was happening their military arm was plummeting to the planet and without their protection the civilian fleet was quick to follow.

Tali clung on to the wall as the Rayya fell towards the unknown planet and screamed.

###

TUCHANKA

The CDEM was gone. Their replacements weren't much better.

Urdnot Wrex dropped to a crouch, rolling the Muton over his shoulder and slamming it down on the ground. His shotgun boomed, reducing the creature's head to paste. He had to admit a form of grudging respect for their attackers. The Mutons were physically the equal of Krogan, apart from their lack of tissue regeneration, and their weaponry was far superior. Wrex found himself falling back on his biotics to win confrontations far more often than he would like.

The robust physiology of the Mutons proved less susceptible to modern firearms, the individual grains passing straight through and doing little damage to the robust internal organs of the aliens. They could still bring down a Muton through sheer weight of fire but more and more Krogan were falling back on relic weapons left over from the Krogan golden age. Graal Spike Throwers, Striker assault rifles and high calibre sniper rifles were all popular choices for dealing with the Mutons. Wrex himself used a Claymore shotgun modded with incendiary rounds, more than capable of putting holes through flesh he could fit his head into.

It had barely been three days since the Tuchankan skies had lit up with the CDEM battlestations detonating in blossoms of nuclear fire and already Wrex was wishing for their return. Not that he didn't appreciate a good fight, but some of the aliens he fought were just wrong. The worst kind were the Floaters. Those things made him ache just looking at them. The Green Crests weren't much better, appearing exactly like Krogan warriors until you put a hole in them and instead of blood toxic gas came pouring out. Seekers were cowardly hit and run fighters, wrapping steel tentacles round his clan mates and squeezing the life out of them, and there was no joy in destroying armed machines like the Sectopods and Cyberdiscs. Nevertheless they were attempting to destroy him, and that was more reason than most of his kills had given him.

###

XCOM Research Report: 29th September 2016

Head Researcher: Dr. Lieza Vahlen

Team Leaders: Dr. Samuel Osabi, Dr. Friederich Zaitsev

TOP SECRET: ANY UNAUTHORISED PERSONNEL READING BEYOND THIS POINT SUBJECT TO IMMEDIATE PUNITIVE ACTION

THIS DOCUMENT IS RF TAGGED ALL MOVEMENTS ARE BEING TRACKED

Alien device examination, project codename: Fountain

The latest device pulled from the Temple Ship has shown to be one of the most promising finds yet. The device has, through careful testing, been proven to intercept radio transmissions and translate them to several alien languages, storing them in a meticulously organised internal database. We estimate that the device already holds almost one hundred terabytes of stored communications, including several from radio frequencies we previously thought were secure.

The computer systems inside the device prove to be a fascinating study as they contain algorithms for a highly adaptive on the fly translation program. This program has already been proven to translate communications in any terrestrial language simultaneously to all major alien dialects. The program has also been surprisingly easy to manipulate to our own needs, allowing us to start a series of basic translations of stored alien communications and starting to build up our understanding of how the aliens communicate.

We have isolated four major alien dialects which have been arbitrarily named Sectoid, Muton, Cyber-form and Ethereal (see appendixes 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively). Surprisingly, the few complete alien comm transcripts we have managed to gather has invalidated several prior assumptions about the aliens, in particular Mutons. We have also discerned that while Mutons, Sectoids and Cyber-form aliens can understand each other's base languages with little effort they possess no knowledge of the Ethereal language, the alien's ruling caste seeming to communicate with their underlings solely through psionic messages relayed through the alien Hyperwave communication network.

We believe that by copying small sections of the translation device's code we can construct field translators that should allow our operatives to intercept and translate enemy messages in the field and hopefully make our POW population easier to handle, as well as open up new possibilities in interacting with cyber-form aliens.

Translator Implant available for manufacture.

###

XCOM HQ

"What have you got for me, Doctor?"

Dr. Vahlen turned to the Commander as he walked into the room. Since the death of his daughter, Hackett had thrown himself into his work with almost suicidal drive, and though his surge in productivity wasn't entirely unwelcome several of his close friends, Dr. Vahlen included, were becoming somewhat worried about him.

Shrugging aside her concerns, Lieza gestured towards the dormant alien drone on the workbench.

"I assume you read our report on the alien translator we found?"

Hackett nodded, eyes focused on the drone. The little things weren't much threat to XCOM warriors but after seeing swarms of them blitzing through buildings and slaughtering every civilian inside before the soldiers could gun them down, they were no less hated.

"Using the translator, we were able to translate SHIV programming into cyber-form code and upload it into an inert drone body. Although our troops could already use Arc Throwers to reverse hostile drone IFF in the field this is a more permanent means of gaining control and should allow us to modify the drones for our own purposes."

Hackett nodded slowly.

"And you're certain once this upgrade is activated the drones won't be able to revert to their original programming?"

Dr. Vahlen shook her head vehemently.

"There is no original programming left. Most of their core operating system was deleted when the Über Ethereal was killed, as for the rest my team spent three days scrubbing it completely from its system. The drones will be completely under our control."

To demonstrate, Dr. Vahlen activated the drone and had it perform a couple of laps of the room, then twitch its frontal manipulators in a passable rendition of the Macarena, accompanied by tinny music blaring from the little thing's internal speaker. Hackett chuckled as the drone came back to rest on the workbench.

"What do you think the odds are that your team will be able to physically modify the drone?"

The doctor shrugged as she absently tapped her datapad.

"Existing drones, highly unlikely. Every component is perfectly balanced, power, weapon, propulsion. Attempting to add, remove or alter any of these components would disrupt the whole system and render the drone unusable. On the other hand, we think we could manufacture new drones from scratch using materials recovered from the Temple Ship. If you wanted us to, we could probably make significant alterations to the drone's design in our new units. What did you have in mind?"

There was a pause as Hackett idly stroked his chin, fingers running along the scar he had gained in the Gulf War.

"A lot of possibilities. The drones could perform several high risk utility roles such as spotting for sniper teams or scouting blind corners. If we used them as airborne spotters for Archangel snipers it would eliminate the need for a ground presence in Sahara Camp altogether."

Dr. Vahlen agreed wholeheartedly with the sentiment. Several soldiers had already been hospitalised by angry Mutons while attempting to police the ghetto set up in the desert. The job, unfortunately, mostly involved clearing up the decaying corpses of Floaters. It turned out that a psionic implant had prevented their bodies from rejecting the mechanical augments, and when the Ethereals were eliminated so were the psi implants. Their organic half suddenly at odds with their mechanical half, the Floaters were quite literally falling to pieces. The XCOM cleanup units had to be quick on the mark - it turned out a Floater jet turbine could be converted into a single use flamethrower-like weapon by some of the more tech-savvy Mutons, and when drained the fuel burned hot enough to allow the inmates to fashion crude blades and armour from the alloy casings left behind. XCOM security forces had already needed to rush in and take out several stockpiles of improvised weapons held by the leaders of the large tribes the Mutons were organising themselves into.

On that topic, Hackett addressed the good doctor once again.

"Any ideas on how to deal with our Muton problem? It seems that for the time being extermination is off the table."

Lieza found her worry returning. The wording of the sentence implied that Hackett was in favour of genocide. Ignoring the implications of his last statement she responded.

"Not at the moment. The staff down at Sahara base are compiling a report on Muton sociology, hopefully that will have some answers."

"I hope so."

###

Jane groaned as she awoke. Her stomach felt like it was on fire, alien tools retracting back into the surgery on articulated arms as the plate she was still cuffed to slid smoothly out of the alien device.

She had briefly contemplated escape, a contemplation quickly rejected when she realised what the Sectoid was doing. Healing her. Time seemed to warp and blend together, long periods of sedative-induced unconsciousness broken by meals and sessions in the surgery. She had no idea if she had been in the room for a week or a year. The nerds back at XCOM had confirmed that the alien circadian rhythms weren't in sync with Earth's twenty four hour day but they had never quite figured out how long the space invaders considered a day to be.

She had already christened her Muton roommate Stewie and the Sectoid taking care of her Brian. Of course, she had no way of knowing if Brian was the same guy between two meetings, for all she knew he was a series of clones that got disintegrated after every time she saw one, but nevertheless she called him/them Brian.

Right now, Brian was rubbing a salve into the healing burns on Stewie's side. The Muton had his eyes closed and his mouth slightly open, seeming to relish in the healing effect the paste had. She knew the feeling - after taking a hit from a plasma rifle, burn salve felt better than sex.

At some point Brian had stopped taking them out of the stasis tanks individually and started removing them at the same time. For the first couple of sessions both of them had strained at their bonds and spat vitriol at one another, then they began to settle into a different rapport. One would lay quiet and listen while the other talked. Of course, Jane had no way to understand the snuffles and grunts Stewie emitted as speech and she doubted he could understand English either. For all she knew he was describing in vivid detail how he was going to relieve her of her internal organs and use her spine to pleasure his lady friends. She usually talked about her family and friends at XCOM.

Stewie was speaking at the moment, his strange language a mixture of animal growls, grunts and snuffles, although Jane couldn't tell how much of it was speech and how much was groans of pleasure as Brian rubbed salve into his burns. Not for the first time she found herself wondering about Mutons. She had fought hundreds of them, blown them away with her sniper rifle, and yet she hardly knew anything about them. What did they eat? Did they listen to music? Was there a Muton version of Failblog?

She chuckled at the mental image of three Mutons roaring at a PC as it played a video of another Muton falling backwards off a swing, then mentally shook herself as a strange noise filled her ears. She couldn't quite make it out but whatever it was, it seemed to be having a profound effect on Stewie. The alien roared and tensed his muscles, ripping an arm out of the cuffs. Suddenly faced with the possibility of the Muton getting loose, all of the anthropomorphisation she had assigned to it fell away, replaced with the cold tactical mind of an XCOM operative. She didn't have weapons or armour, but she didn't need them when she had her mind.

Brian clicked angrily, trying to force Stewie's arm back down and getting propelled across the room for his efforts. Testing the cuffs, she found they had significantly more give to them than she remembered. Apparently Stewie's unnatural surge of strength had short-circuited the mechanism holding them closed. She quickly ripped her own limbs out of their imprisonment, leaping off the table and ignoring the twinging in her stomach as she prepared her mental powers. Stewie tore the last of his limbs out of its cuff and jumped into a fighting stance, wicked claws gently clicking against one another. Jane knew that however this went down, one of them wouldn't be walking away.

###

KROGAN DMZ

The Turian fleet exited the Relay, sensors immediately sweeping the area for any sign of threats. Since the inexplicable loss of contact with all assets in the cluster ten days ago, the Council had ordered a Hierarchy Battlefleet to secure the system. One could never be too careful where Krogan were involved.

As predicted, no spaceborne threats. Yet somehow the CDEM headquarters station had been replaced with a slowly spreading debris field that was painting trails of plasma across the Tuchankan sky as it skimmed the edge of the planet's atmosphere. On the bridge of the Turian flagship vessel, Admiral Abras Tanarek watched the screens carefully for any sign of hostile activity. Younger, more hot headed Turians would call him an over-cautious old man who overestimates his foes. He personally let his record of the fewest combat losses under his command per enemy killed in the history of the Hierarchy do the talking. In his book, keeping his men alive was his highest priority. He made individual visits to the families of any soldier who died while acting under his orders. That was dedication.

"Status report."

"All elements have cleared the relay and are assuming combat formation. Awaiting orders."

He nodded.

"Proceed to Vaul for drive core discharge, maintain patrol grid at all times."

As his subordinate relayed his orders, he looked at the tactical map and pondered his options. There was no hostile space force, and indeed he hadn't expected one, but something had taken out the CDEM bases in the system in a single simultaneous blow. Something didn't add up.

"I don't like this, sir."

He glanced up at the captain of the dreadnought, Antari Kolotaras. The older female's mandibles were twitching back and forth as she watched the system pass by.

"Either the Krogan have pulled off a very complicated plan or there's a third force at work here. Either way, something big is happening in this system."

Abras nodded his agreement.

"Any Krogan smart enough to plan an attack like this would know that the logical step would be a peacekeeping fleet."

"In which case we're heading straight into a trap."

"Any thoughts as to the nature of this trap?"

She twitched her mandibles again, then an expression of horror graced her features.

"It's standard procedure for us to immediately discharge our drive cores ..."

The fleet dropped out of FTL, the automated systems moving them in to skim the upper atmosphere of Vaul.

"... at the nearest gas giant."

Abras dove for the command channel.

"All ships, maximum readiness! Prepare for close assault!"

Sinister shapes started to rise out of the gas giant's rings as the Turian fleet scrambled to prepare themselves for the coming attack. Abras could only stare in amazement at the ships. He had never seen anything like them before. The centrepieces of the ambush were six enormous dreadnought-sized vessels that had a dangerous spiky appearance, unlike anything he had ever seen. They were accompanied by boxy light cruisers and disc shaped frigates and corvettes, swarming towards his ships at a terrifying rate. Suddenly engaged in melee, his conservative, long range tactics were invalidated, every ship forced to fend for itself in the chaotic furball.

One such corvette streamed towards the dreadnought, a constant blitz of green energy pouring out of it as it came. The plasma - because that's what it was - passed through his vessel's kinetic barriers with ease, the shielding no obstacle to the energy weapons. Energy weapons! He couldn't believe it.

Panicked status reports were bandied around the bridge, the shouts only adding to the aura of chaos.

"Our engines are out! K-barrier generator is down!"

"Hull breach! We have a hull breach!"

"Partial loss of heat and atmo to decks nine and ten!"

"All comms are down! Defensive armament at thirty per cent power!"

Abras noted that the offending corvette had shut off its plasma weapon, instead firing strings of what looked like orange crystals at the ship. The dreadnought's K-barrier was down, the vessel presenting no resistance to the penetrating rounds spewing forth.

"Boarders!"

The shout went up and every Turian on the bridge produced a weapon. Abras took the opportunity to check how the rest of the fleet was doing.

Already half his ships were expanding clouds of debris, smashed aside by the sheer destructive power raining from the enemy dreadnoughts. The other half were beleaguered by the harassment of the disc-shaped corvettes and frigates, backed up by volleys of plasma fire from the grim, implacable mass of the boxy cruisers. His mandibles slackened in disbelief. This wasn't a battle. It was a rout. The first time since the Krogan Rebellions that a Turian fleet had been defeated in open battle. He hit his comm override, unsure if his words would even be transmitted.

"All ships that are still capable, break off and head for the Mass Relay. Send word to Palaven. This is a direct order."

Any other words were cut off as three objects smashed through the ceiling of the bridge, embedding themselves in the floor. The Admiral turned, pistol raised, as the orange crystals lifted off the ground, strange energies swirling around them and forming the husk of an armoured creature wielding a glowing green rifle of some sort.

That was the last thing he ever saw.

###

XCOM Research Report: 18th October 2016

Head Researcher: Dr. Lieza Vahlen

Team Leaders: Dr. Samuel Osabi, Dr. Amanda Kasanyé

TOP SECRET: ANY UNAUTHORISED PERSONNEL READING BEYOND THIS POINT SUBJECT TO IMMEDIATE PUNITIVE ACTION

THIS DOCUMENT IS RF TAGGED ALL MOVEMENTS ARE BEING TRACKED

Experimental armour modification, project codename: Testudo

Upon obtaining a number of intact Sectopods and Cyberdiscs for study following the capture of the alien Temple Ship, we believe that we have discovered the source of a curious property of these enemies the troops refer to as 'hardening'.

The phenomenon of hardening has been extensively documented by XCOM squads in the field. Most of the larger cyber-form aliens and Ethereals exhibit this property. From what we have been able to determine these aliens project a low level energy field that has the ability to redirect incoming fire away from critical systems to strike other, less important components. Our snipers in particular find this highly inconvenient.

The research team have managed to isolate the device we believe is responsible for this trait and have discovered the design is deceptively simple. The energy field is very easy to replicate and we have developed a device that we believe will use this effect to far greater effect than the aliens did. Through manipulation of the power output in a repurposed Cyberdisc we have identified several other uses for this field. The effect scales with the power flowing through the device and we showed that applying a surge of power to this device can make the target almost completely invulnerable for short periods of time. The downside is that the field also effects outgoing projectiles at the higher power setting, making weapons exceedingly difficult to aim for the time it is active. At a lower power level the field provides a significant level of protection with glancing shots redirected completely away and direct blows lessened in power and nudged away from vital systems. We have also observed that the effectiveness of the field depends somewhat on the power of the weapon firing, conveying almost total immunity from pistol fire yet doing very little to protect from plasma sniper bolts or Sectopod cannon fire.

The scientific division, working in concert with Engineering, have developed a variable power hardening field module that can easily be integrated into our powered armour designs. This final design has two effects - increased protection for vital organs, and a fixed reduction in the energy of any incoming fire. This design can also be boosted to provide a temporary massive increase in personal protection at the cost of offensive ability. Note that this system provides no protection against close combat attacks.

Personal Hardening Field available for manufacture.

MEC/SHIV Hardening Field Foundry project available.

###

TEMPLE SHIP

Summoning a bolt of pure psionic force, Jane lashed out. The streamer of purple energy leaped from her hand to the Muton's chest, catching the creature full on and propelling it out of the room, punching a hole in the wall with its passage. She followed up her attack by leaping up onto the table, readying herself for another psi technique. The Gollop Chamber had opened her mind, boosted her psionic powers and granted her a massive array of abilities at her disposal. She swiftly settled on a basic Psi Suppression technique, the purple energy streaming around her opponent and slowing his motions until it looked like he was struggling through neck deep treacle.

In almost comical slow motion, Stewie's head turned as the noise that had started the whole thing sounded again. He suddenly seemed to disregard her, instead seeking out the source of the noise. She hurriedly cancelled the Psi Suppression, readying her mental powers in case he turned on her again.

Her curiosity was piqued by the strange sound. Ensuring to keep a healthy distance from the volatile alien, Jane started to follow him deeper into the Temple Ship.

###

TEMPLE SHIP

Major Alenko looked around in surprise as the Mutons he was guarding suddenly turned round, the turn coinciding with a strange, echoing sound emanating from deep within the Temple Ship. Confused, he tapped the communicator panel in his left gauntlet, opening a channel to the Commander.

"Command, this is Major Alenko. We have some strange Muton behaviour here, sir, they seem to be reacting to a sound coming from within the Temple Ship's deep layers."

Moments later Hackett's gravelly voice entered his helmet.

"Copy that, Major. Seems every Muton on the ship is being affected. Follow them at a distance, find out where they're going. If they show any sign of hostility take them down."

"Understood, sir."

He turned to his squad, looking them over. As well as himself, Taylor, Williams and Vega, he had two rookies in his squad, Jenkins and Goto. The two rookies were equipped with light plasma rifles. Although the weapons did less damage than the heavier plasma rifle Alenko wielded or the specialist weapons of the other members of his squad, they had an inbuilt stabiliser that boosted a Rookie's generally poor aim and made for an excellent firearm when making the transition from the crude ballistic weapons of whatever national force they had been recruited from to the plasma tech prevalent around XCOM. Like everyone else, their armour had been upgraded with the Personal Hardening Field modification that took the form of an excessively large guard on the right shoulder that shone with a bright green light. Almost everyone in XCOM now used Archangel armour, the flight ability a massive tactical boon and allowing them to soar safely above the unarmed crowds of Mutons that could still rip a soldier limb from limb if they were caught off guard.

Readying his plasma rifle, he motioned his squad forward, keeping his jets warmed up to leap into the air at the first sign of danger. He glanced across at Lieutenant Vega, the bulky operative interpreting his intentions with ease born of countless operations together and stowing his Heavy Plasma, replacing it with the Blaster Launcher all Heavies carried. If the Mutons decided to make trouble the enormous guided plasma bombs the weapon fired would be invaluable in breaking the initial rush. However, the hulking aliens seemed happy to merely proceed deeper into the ship, compelled by the eerie sound that periodically issued forth from the depths of the ship. No XCOM forces had ventured there yet - they kept their operations for the time being confined to the upper portion of the Temple Ship out of an almost superstitious dread as to what horrors awaited below. Even the usually cavalier Dr. Vahlen hadn't suggested the soldiers attempt to head deep into the vessel for the love of science, instead busying herself with feverish study of the enormous number of alien devices flowing in from the parts of the vessel they had secured. And yet here they were, following a horde of Mutons deep into unexplored territory. The rookies were visibly nervous, their gung-ho attitude seemingly dispersed in the face of the lingering threat. Kaidan checked his squad readout. Although Goto was doing surprisingly well Jenkins had his thrusters running hot.

"Jenkins, shut off your jets. You're wasting fuel."

Not technically true - the Archangel's gravity wave thrusters were powered by a speck of plutonium in each thruster that produced more than enough energy to operate the gravity wave devices that held a soldier aloft. The limitation to the thruster efficiency was, in fact, heat production. Jenkins was actually running the risk of overloading his thrusters with heat, which would cause an emergency shutdown. It was just easier to say fuel.

As Jenkins somewhat sheepishly shut off his thrusters Kaidan led the team through a large door that the Mutons had disappeared through, James second in and covering them with his absurdly powerful blaster launcher. What they saw wasn't what they were expecting.

They were in an enormous, cavernous chamber lined with row upon row of stasis tanks. And inside those stasis tanks were creatures that he had never seen before.

There were creatures inside the pods. They appeared to be the source of the sound that was causing the Mutons to act bizarrely and were physically very similar. Although far more slender than the average Muton the creature still outmassed a fully armoured XCOM soldier by a significant margin. Its features seemed slightly softer than the craggy faces of the average Muton and its body was covered in tribal tattoos similar to those that usually covered the upper arms and shoulders of the enormous alien soldiers. Kaidan almost instantly knew what he was looking at.

Female Mutons.

Over five thousand of them.

One of the Muton warriors - a Berserker, judging by the way he moved - stepped up to the nearest container and bunched up his muscles, delivering an enormous blow to the side of the tank. His meaty fist shattered the relatively fragile tank, the stasis fluid splashing onto the floor and the female Muton flopping forwards, her sheer mass yanking various tubes out of her bulky body as she fell into the surprisingly gentle grasp of the Berserker. That seemed to be the catalyst for a wave of Mutons ripping their females out of their imprisonment, the seven XCOM squads deployed around the doors and preparing to turn the entire room into a kill box.

The first female awoke, hauling herself up in a dignified manner and briefly tottering on unsteady legs before righting herself. She blinked and looked around imperiously as a door on the far side of the room opened, admitting one more Muton that was unarmoured with a pattern of semi-healed plasma burns up his right side. Another figure stepped into the room after the burned Muton. It took Kaidan a moment of squinting to recognise the figure. Although she was hardly recognisable outside of her armour, the way she held herself proved her identity beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Colonel Jane Shepard was alive.


	2. Chapter 2

XCOM HQ

Commander Hackett paced up and down outside the medical bay as the nerds ran tests on his daughter. Except he didn't know if it really was his daughter in there. Just by looking at her, he could tell she wasn't the same as she had been. Her body had been covered in scars - knives, plasma guns, ill advised tattoos, the marks life left on a body all erased. She had always had one ear slightly bigger than the other, something that bothered her to no end and made her always style her hair to cover one or both ears. Not any more. Both her ears were perfectly proportioned. The band of freckles across her nose were likewise absent, her skin several shades paler than it had previously been and unmarked by any blemish. Her hair, previously a sort of mousy brown and slightly straggly, was thick and long, coloured a strange white-beige colour and reaching to her waist. She somehow seemed more delicate than the brawny, steely XCOM operative he knew as his daughter, almost elfin in her new appearance. Hackett didn't like it at all.

Then again, mentally she seemed unchanged by whatever had happened to her on the Temple Ship. She still had the quirks he recognised - she scratched the corner of her eyebrow when someone said something she perceived as stupid or weird, she swore in Russian whenever she was annoyed and she used the phrases 'turned to modern art' or 'dead as disco' to refer to the destruction of an alien. He was waiting for the doctors to tell him exactly what it was in there. Whether he should continue to mourn his daughter or not.

Dr. Vahlen emerged from the med lab with an expression on her face that couldn't decide if it was happy or worried.

"What have you found?"

The doctor looked exhausted. After spending almost forty eight hours running an exhaustive battery of tests on the Colonel she had every right to be.

"Firstly, we've run brain scans, personality tests, psych evals and even had a couple of psionics take a look. We're 100 per cent certain that is Colonel Shepard, sir."

Hackett sagged in relief. If he had to cope with an alien running round wearing his dead daughter's face ... he wouldn't have been able to. He made to enter the room, only to have the doctor block him with a hand.

"There's more, sir. Though she is Jane Shepard, her body is ... I'm not entirely sure how to describe it."

She held up a tablet that showed strings of DNA highlighted on a full body scan.

"You might have noticed the physical changes. They're merely side effects of the procedures used to rebuild her. We took a blood sample and discovered extensive evidence of Sectoid RNA in her cells, which was apparently used as a sort of scaffold while her own body was grown back into the repairs. The physical changes are as a result of small segments of Sectoid RNA being unintentionally converted to human DNA and added to her genome. Another interesting feature we found was an extra chromosome in her white blood cells composed of Sectoid DNA. We couldn't figure out what it was for until we realised that thanks to the structure it is possible to encode the Sectoid language in Sectoid DNA. It turned out this chromosome was a medical record and surgeon's notes implanted directly into her immune cells."

Hackett rubbed his scar, wishing the doctor would cut to the chase.

"Probably the biggest thing we've found though are these."

She pointed to ten small nodes the size of golf balls nestled on the inside of her spine.

"As you're aware we're limited in the amount of genetically modified soldiers we can support since they require regular injections of Meld to keep their bodies from rejecting the additions we made. These organs constantly synthesise Meld by metabolising food and metallic elements. As long as she maintains a high calorie, high iron diet she should never require these injections. There is one other side effect to the Meld synthesisers however. I believe she now ages backwards."

Hackett glared at the doctor.

"Explain."

To her credit Vahlen only faltered a little bit under his stare.

"The stem cell G-mod in her bone marrow traditionally consumed small amounts of meld to heal injuries in the field. With the meld synthesiser organs, not only will she be able to regenerate twice as fast as a normal G-modded operative but every time one of her cells divides the bone marrow adaptation will not only prevent her telomeres from shortening but actually lengthen them slightly. For every year she lives she will physiologically speaking get one year younger."

He clenched his fists.

"Doc, I've already done puberty once. I don't want to have to do it again backwards."

Vahlen shook her head vehemently.

"Oh no! You misunderstand me, Commander. She'll get younger on a cellular level and her physical appearance may alter slightly but she won't regress to a child. She is a fully developed adult and will stay that way."

"What about when she runs out of time? When she reaches the physiological age of zero?"

Dr. Vahlen sighed.

"At that point it is my belief, though I am uncertain, that the process would halt and she would remain in this 'zero state' indefinitely. At that point I can hardly speculate as to what effects it would have on her body but combined with her gene mods? It is quite possible she would be able to regrow a limb in a matter of seconds. If only I could perform some more invasive tests ..."

It showed how tired the doctor was that she was even voicing those thoughts. Because of that, and the look of mortification on her face as soon as she realised what she said, Hackett decided to cut her some slack.

"Lieza, your entire team is sleep deprived and running on caffeine, and for that I'm going to let that comment slide. Rest up. Your team is hereby on paid leave for seventy two hours. Now if you'll excuse me I'd like to see my daughter."

He stepped through the door to see Colonel Shepard clad in some scrubs lifted from a medical locker and in the process of trying to sneak out of the hospital.

"Janey ..."

She turned, her face the perfect representation of 'hand in the cookie jar'.

"Hi Daddy."

He merely stared at her. After a moment she subsided and got back into the hospital bed, not without a good deal of grumbling. He went and sat down on the edge of her bed.

"Hey baby. How you feeling?"

"I'm fine. Really, this isn't necessary. They wouldn't even give me clothes."

There was a slight pause.

"What's the date?"

"October 21."

She whistled.

"I was gone seven weeks?"

He nodded. There was another pause. Then at an unseen signal father and daughter flew into a tight embrace.

"I'm sorry Daddy."

He gently rubbed her back.

"What for?"

"You thought I was dead ..."

"Don't be sorry, it wasn't your fault. I've got you back now, that's all that matters."

Her only response was to squeeze him tighter.

"Love you, Daddy."

###

SAHARA CAMP

Utah stared into the fire with beady black eyes. Now she was among her kind again instead of locked in a tank, used as a living component of some infernal Adraa assembly line. Of course she was still a prisoner of the strange new ones. They flew through the air like the twisted abominations the Orouru had been made into, long rifles in their hands as they surveyed the encampment with their sharp eyes and their damnable invisible drones. She had already seen them gun down an Adraa seen carrying one of the primitive hell torches made from the dead Orouru, despite the weapon proving not to be any threat to their flying warriors. If the whim took them she was certain it would be little difficulty for them to slaughter the entire camp's population. Genocide propagated by green light from flying devils.

She looked around at the various Adraa surrounding the cookpot. She had heard the word these new ones used for her kind from one of the reptilian Tarch infiltrators, speaking a little too freely in the breeding chamber. Muton. It was an ugly word, but it seemed to fit her kind well. Around the cookpot along with her was another female, this one younger and less experienced. Utah's beta. When Utah perished the younger female, Moro, would take over Utah's duties as the tribe's Shaman. Moro, she knew, was hoping that time was far off - she was having far too much fun as the chief female in the breeding group, or harem. As the beta, she got the attention of the greater males, the enormous hulks of muscle and ferocity the new ones called Berserkers while the other females had to make do with the lesser males, the simple foot soldiers.

Muton reproduction was a complicated process, and one that after so long trapped in a stasis pod Utah was glad she could stay out of. The tribe's females, aside from the Shaman, would be organised into a harem led by a beta female, usually containing five or six omega females. The greater males would have sex with the beta female, semi-fertilising her eggs. The beta female would then have sex with the omega females, transferring the semi fertilised eggs to the smaller females whose own egg sacs weren't activated until they moved to the position of beta female. The lesser males would then have sex with the omega females, completing the fertilisation of the eggs. The omega females would then have sex with the egg carriers, transferring the fertilised eggs across to them to carry for a month or so before the eggs were laid and placed under the care of the Shaman, the egg carriers serving to guard the nest, and later the young, necessitating them to be smarter, stronger and better armed than the lesser and greater males. Sometimes Utah contemplated that evolution had given the Adraa the brittle blade when it came to reproduction. For the Tarch it was simply two partners have a tumble, then they laid an egg or two and promptly forgot about it. Granted they sometimes spent more time trying to extricate each other's limbs from the knots they tied themselves in than they did copulating but it was fairly simple. The Zh/Sh/Zk'Zk/Jh/Sk'Jk/Sh/Sh, or as she preferred to pronounce it the Clicks, merely squirted some of that weird grey stuff into a pool of water and left it for a while. As for those insectoid monsters the Enn she wasn't even going to mention them. But then again, as she remembered her own days as a beta back before the Adraa were enslaved, it was a lot of fun.

Her internal diatribe on the subject of alien sex was cut short by the snapping sound of one of the flying soldier's plasma weapons. Glancing up, she could just see the afterglow of the beam, connecting a blue speck in the distance with a spot on the edge of the camp. Across the fire, Moro groaned.

"Another one of Yomah's fools I think. They're always talking about climbing the fence. As if the devils would let them."

Beside her, Boruv grunted his agreement. Of the three greater males, or bulls, that usually serviced Moro the beta female seemed to be the fondest of Boruv. The two of them seemed to spend an awful lot of time together.

"I should think that if they ever attained a hardening field it would direct fire towards their heads."

All the Adraa around the cookpot barked in amusement as an egg-carrier, Vuta, leaned over and stirred the watery stew slowly brewing. It wasn't easy to make meals out of the basic rations the new ones were providing but the mighty Adraa were nothing if not adaptable.

"I must admit I tire of this. Hemmed up like cattle. At least I know we only have to wait for the Ethereal Ones to send the next wave."

"Wrong."

All present spun round, dropping into fighting stances as the largest bull they had ever seen stepped into the circle of light surrounding the fire. His arms and upper torso were completely covered in tattoos, marred by the scarring of several plasma burns to the right side of his torso.

"These new ones, these ... Humans. They are a chance for us."

Utah scrambled to her feet. Usually Adraa deferred to a female, especially a Shaman. The scarred bull merely stared at her with expressionless eyes.

"Who are you, and what madness grips you?"

"Tell me Shaman. What do you know of the Human kind? Have you ever listened to one as she spills her thoughts and fears? Laughed at their jokes? Been privy to their deepest desires? It is amazing the things a wounded soldier will say when she thinks you can't understand her."

He paused for a moment and took three steps closer, bringing his craggy features into the light. His face was weathered and beaten, as if he had stood face to the wind in a sandstorm, his features chiselled from ancient stone.

"The Humans are a rare breed. Not because of their physical capabilities or mental fortitude but because of the way they think. They are flawed and they recognise it. They endeavour to improve upon their flaws instead of deny their failings with religious fervour."

The assembled Adraa looked between one another, unsure what to think.

"You speak of the return of the Ethereals like it is a good thing! And I am the mad one?"

Angered by this other bull muscling in on his territory, Boruv stood and pounded his chest, a classic threat display. Instead of responding with aggression or submission the other bull merely stood impassive.

"So you would have us stay locked in this ghetto?"

"I would have us put our past behind us and make peace with the Human."

Every Adraa around the fire stood and bellowed, outraged by what the stranger was suggesting.

"How dare you? How dare you suggest peace with the devils that have slaughtered thousands of our kind!"

"How many Adraa were slain by the Ethereals?"

That question gave the enraged tribe pause.

"It took six attempts for them to conquer us. Each time a generation passed between each one. They transformed our homeworld into a radioactive hell and imprisoned our females in a soulless machine, casually violating everything that makes us Adraa so we can be thrown at whatever race the Ethereals set their sights on next? Do you remember what happened to the Tarch planet? The atrocities committed in the name of those who held our females hostage? For the first time since our wars we have found a species capable of withstanding the Ethereals. Better than that. We have found a species with the strength to fight back."

The stranger stepped forward, staring into the fire.

"It's about time we remembered who we were. So I suppose you have to ask yourselves. Are you Adraa? Or are you a Muton?"

###

XCOM HQ

The playback of the surveillance recording from the stealth drone paused. Colonel Shepard shook her head.

"All that time he could understand me."

Hackett glanced sharply at his daughter.

"You know this Muton?"

She stared at the face of the enormous Berserker for a moment.

"When I was being healed on the Temple Ship I was sharing a room with him. I called him Stewie."

Several of the XCOM operatives frowned.

"The Sectoid healing us, Brian, he kept us both immobilised, only took us out of the stasis tanks to feed us or run us through the surgery. After about the fourth session we stopped trying to bust out and strangle each other whenever we were awake. We sort of ended up talking. Of course we couldn't understand one another, or at least I couldn't understand him."

Major Alenko glanced at the screen, on which the image of the scarred Berserker was frozen.

"He seems sincere. Orders, Commander?"

Hackett took a moment to search his daughter's face. She met his scrutiny with unreadable eyes.

"I've got a hunch this is genuine. If so I should be the one to make contact. He'll recognise me."

Hackett paused for a moment.

"Alright. You're on the situation team. Colonel Zha is in command."

Jane frowned.

"A word in private, sir?"

The two of them peeled off and ducked into a small antechamber.

"Zha's a bloodthirsty xenophobe."

"Zha is appropriately suspicious of anything to do with the X-rays. I can't let your affection for this Muton compromise your judgement."

"I'm not saying I should be in command. But Zha's wife was killed when the X-rays hit Shanghai. Her judgement is no more sound than mine."

"Colonel ..."

"You're so desperate to protect me you're putting someone in charge who will go for the blaster launcher if a Muton scratches his nose. Remember what we promised? Commander first."

"And Father second, I know. Fine. Colonel Catrón."

"Better."

They re-emerged into the briefing chamber.

"Colonel Shepard brings up a valid point. Zha is overworked as it is co-ordinating the teams assigned to bring in the Thin Men. Colonel Catrón will command the situation team."

Several of the assembled operatives frowned, well aware that wasn't the real reason, but they knew not to question the Commander.

"Colonel Catrón to the situation room."

Moments later an enormous muscled man with weathered olive skin and dreadlocks swept back from his head by a loose silver band stepped in.

"Commander Hackett, sir. Reporting as ordered."

"Excellent. A situation has arisen."

As Hackett briefed the colonel on the situation Jane looked back into the eyes of Stewie, frozen on the screen.

"I guess I'll be seeing you soon, buddy."

###

XCOM HQ

Hackett resisted the urge to groan. The anonymous voice of the Council always rubbed him the wrong way with his flair for theatrics. He smirked as he recalled the nickname several of the soldiers had started using for him. Serious Voice Man. It was fitting.

"Hello Commander." He always started his calls with that, the first sentence showing Hackett that for this call he was using his Seriousest Voice, the one that seemed to be designed to make him cower. Regardless to say it rarely worked.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"The Council has become concerned with the lack of oversight implemented on your organisation. Your operatives move freely through their sovereign soil with no respect for any national claims on alien artefacts."

National claims on alien artefacts? Hackett had known this was coming, he just didn't expect so soon.

"Two months since we seized the Temple Ship and we're already descending back into nationalistic squabbling? These so called artefacts are incredibly dangerous weapons. Nobody can be trusted to possess them."

A slight tinge of sarcasm was injected into the Seriousest Voice.

"Nobody except you."

"Working at XCOM tends to give one a different worldview. We can be the only ones trusted with this technology because we will use it to safeguard the entire planet. Not as pieces in an international game of one-upmanship."

"You seem to forget where your funding and personnel come from, Commander."

"You created XCOM to protect humankind from the alien menace. Just because their leadership is gone doesn't mean the menace remains."

"A few thousand prisoners of war hardly constitutes a menace, Commander."

Hackett sighed.

"XCOM possesses a Hyperwave beacon that can link in to the temple ship's core network and track every piece of X-ray tech on the planet in real time. Thus far we have foiled three separate attempts by terrorist groups to convert the elerium core from a downed UFO into a plasma bomb. You know this, you've seen the reports. Granted the only things they were at risk of blowing up were themselves but I think these examples illustrate my point quite nicely. Humanity isn't ready for the responsibility that comes with this technology. Not until we can stop fighting among ourselves and present a united face to the rest of the universe."

Serious Voice Man tilted his head, making sure to keep the light behind him and stay as an ominous silhouette.

"The United States, South Africa, Nigeria, India and China are all threatening to cut your funding."

Hackett sighed and shook his head.

"Have they not seen what happened to France?"

Early on in the invasion France had ended their contribution to the XCOM project. As a result, XCOM hadn't had any coverage and had been unable to monitor alien activity in the country. The French Military had arrogantly believed they didn't need XCOM to fight the X-rays. By the time the war was over almost eighty per cent of the population were Chryssalids and eight hundred thousand UN troops were tied up quarantining the wasteland that used to be a country.

"The war is over, Commander."

Hackett jabbed his finger at the screen.

"This war may be over. But humanity needs XCOM. Now more than ever."

"And how do you intend to accomplish your crusade when the Council cuts your funding? Your refusal to supply plasma weapons has earned you very little political capital."

Glancing down at the railing, Hackett noticed his knuckles were almost white.

"Here's the bottom line. What we're doing is for the good of our species. If the Council doesn't want us they're making a mistake, putting international dick waving contests ahead of mutual security. With this technology we're kids playing around with loaded guns. XCOM is the kid who knows what happens when someone pulls the trigger. Have a pleasant day."

The screen blanked, switching moments later to the map of the world. France had a swirling red and orange hurricane of angry pixels above it. To Hackett it felt like a personal failure.

###

CITADEL

"We have a problem."

Understatement of the millennium.

It was bad enough when the CDEM went dark. It was worse when the STG assets sent to investigate went dark. When an entire Turian fleet went dark the situation was far past being a problem.

"I propose we initiate a full scale invasion of the Krogan DMZ."

"For all we know the entire star cluster has turned into a black hole. Are you so eager to throw your ships and men away?"

Tevos sighed. It had been like this for a while. The constant back and forth, the debates, the blaming. It wasn't like she had any better ideas what to do but at least she was being civil. The same could not be said for Valern and Sparatus.

The two men were constantly butting heads. Sparatus saw the world through a set of rifle sights, Tevos wondering not for the first time why Turians had to be so damnably militaristic. Valern on the other hand was a Salarian who had been big in the STG before his promotion to Councillor. The thing about STG operatives was that they never acted unless they had all the data. Even when collecting all the data could cause a diplomatic incident. She had lost count of the number of times she had to calm a livid Batarian ambassador when they found 'evidence' of STG activities in the Hegemony. Of course there never was any evidence, at least none that hadn't been fabricated by the Hegemony, but everyone knew the Salarians were everywhere. She knew the lack of intelligence must have been causing a good deal of distress to her Salarian counterpart, especially since he had to field Sparatus's desire to throw increasing numbers of guns at the problem until it fixed itself.

She rubbed her eyes and refilled her mug with Thessian Irridescence tea before diving back into the fray. She missed her maiden days.

###

UNKNOWN PLANET

The Marine made a twiddling motion at the side of his head. Understanding, Tali shut off her external vocaliser, relying on her in-helmet comms to communicate. The red-suited Quarian male peered round the corner, assault rifle held tight to his chest. Tali gripped the handle of her shotgun, trying to remain calm. It wasn't easy.

The Marine, something'Reegar, stepped round the corner and fired off a burst from his assault rifle. Something squealed and he waved them on. She paused for a moment, peering at whatever it was Reegar had shot. A strange creature with scrawny limbs, reminding her somewhat of a Salarian but with a bulbous head and two enormous black eyes. Something about it didn't feel right. She shuddered as she kept moving.

The strange grey aliens had surrounded the wreck of the Rayya, gobbets of green plasma spewing at any Quarians they saw moving. Tali had never seen a dead body before the crash. She had thus far seen nineteen. She had to keep moving, ignore the Quarian blood that was splashed against her side and the scent of charred flesh that clung to her like an unwelcome apparition from the Ancestors. With her vocaliser off, nobody could hear the low chant she was keeping up as she ran.

"Not going to die, not going to die, not going to die ..."

She screamed softly as a bolt of hissing emerald buried itself in the wall, melting through the heat resistant bulkhead with disturbing ease. She stumbled for a moment, Reegar yanking her to her feet and propelling her ahead of him with an almighty shove to her posterior. She barely had time to issue a squeak in protest at the affront to her dignity before another hail of plasma bolts reminded her to run for her life.

By the time they came to a halt Tali felt like a walking corpse. Fuelled by fear, she had sprinted almost half a kilometre. She stumbled and fell, rolling in the way all Quarians were taught to avoid shattering her mask. Reegar hauled her to her feet again.

"Come on, we have to keep moving!"

She groaned and forced her aching body to put one foot in front of the other. She wanted nothing more than to collapse into the nearest soft thing (or Reegar's muscly chest) but her survival instinct overrode all other concerns.

"What are we going to do?"

Reegar didn't have an answer for her.

###

SAHARA CAMP

Utah glanced up as several of the devils flew overhead in tight formation. She still wasn't sure about the latest addition to her tribe. The devil-sympathiser. She had to admit it was a nice ideal but she didn't see it ever coming to fruition. The devils seemed content to keep them assigned to this purgatory. Yet the bull's strength couldn't be denied. When Boruv had tried to charge the newcomer he hadn't met the charge head on as was the norm. He had neatly sidestepped and gave the charging bull a hearty slap to the back as he passed, making Boruv stumble. He had repeated the process four times, Boruv growing more and more enraged with each time while the others saw what he was doing. Toying with his opponent. On the fifth he had stood his ground, crouching and striking at the last second with an uppercut that connected with Boruv's jaw hard enough to lift him off the ground. After that display of strength there wasn't really any way she couldn't admit him to the tribe. Usually she appreciated her tribe-mates having more than muscle between their ears but in this case she made an exception. The new bull came at things sideways. It was how he thought.

She glanced upwards again, noticing the formation of devils hadn't moved on. In fact, if anything they seemed to be lowering. As she barked her tribe awake she felt the itchy feeling that told her someone was looking at her head down the sights of a plasma gun.

One of the Devils touched down, ripples of blue slowly coiling downwards from her gravity jets as she approached the fire, rifle in hand. To Utah's surprise she spoke in passable Adkah.

"So you speak of peace?"

"Hello Kellah. How fare you?"

The devil glanced up and bared her teeth at the scarred bull examining her from across the fire.

"Much better, Stewie. And you?"

"I fare well. What brings you here?"

"Your kind are causing an awful lot of problems. This camp is only a temporary solution. Keeping you here costs resources we can ill afford to spend on alien prisoners when we're using everything we have to rebuild after the war. People are starving while we have to airdrop rations in here to keep a lid on you guys. I'm hoping that you can help me find a solution that doesn't involve plasma bombs."

"That will be difficult. I may be willing to work with you, but I have perspective other Adraa lack. I doubt critically wounding every one of our kind then locking them all in a room with a talkative Human would be an effective strategy."

Utah glanced between the two of them in disbelief. Was this madman cracking jokes with a devil?

"Adraa. Is that the name of your species?"

"Yes, it is. I am surprised you are so curious."

The devil chuckled again.

"I think you'll find us Humans are a very contradictory species. Walk into a room with ten Humans and you'll get twelve different opinions on any subject."

"And what is your opinion on us?"

She paused momentarily and thought about it.

"We're more alike than either of us realises. And there's been enough deaths on both sides because of the Ethereals. I'd like there to be no more."

"No more Human death?"

"A life's a life, no matter what shape."

"A surprising outlook for a soldier to hold."

"One I think we could all do with a bit more of. Why did you call me Kellar?"

In response the newcomer ... Stewie, the devil had called him ... ran his finger over one of the ornate lines of alien glyphs tattooed on his left bicep.

"The little thing stared at me, its uninjured leg twitching as it reflexively attempted to leap away. Tiny paws worried at its nose, scratching and scrabbling through its fur as it peered fearfully at me. I reached out a hand and rolled the little Kellar over, examining the wound. It was clearly inflicted by a snare, the likes of which I had set many times before. I could not explain the surge of guilt, nor the connection I felt with the fearful little thing as I glanced down at my own mangled limb, phantom pains starting to ghost up and down as the infusion of kartu slowly wore off."

He glanced back up at her.

"It's a verse from one of our epics, the Tale of Vorastra. A warrior was wounded in battle and crawled into a cave where he found an equally wounded Kellar, a small jumping lizard native to our world. Instead of killing the creature for food Vorastra showed it kindness, sharing his supplies and fire. In return when the rest of the Kellar's pack found them they nursed Vorastra back to health along with his Kellar friend." He smiled slightly, a mere twitch of his lips. "It ... struck a chord. Why do you call me Stewie?"

The devil blinked twice.

"Damn. That was really profound. I guess a Family Guy box set could explain better than me." She looked back at the scarred bull. "With your permission I'd like to bring you back to HQ with me. I'm sure the Commander would be interested to meet you."

Utah could only watch in dumb disbelief as an enormous flying craft landed in the middle of the encampment and the bull disappeared inside with the devils.

###

XCOM HQ

When Hackett woke up this morning he certainly hadn't been expecting to be holding a conversation with a Muton Berserker.

"So what do I call you?"

The Muton glanced to his daughter, who had an amused smirk on her face.

"Stewie will suffice, Commander."

"Stewie." He was almost certain his daughter was doing her damnedest to conceal a shit eating grin. "What must we do to bring about a truce between our people and yours?"

"Firstly, let me tell you a little about my kind. We were once as you are now. Proud and independent. Our homeworld was similar to this world. We called it Yoma Synanda. Defiant Fortress. We were around your technology level when the Ethereals came, with a couple of differences. We had already mastered directed light weapons but were yet to split the atom. We also possessed an ability to move objects using the power of thought, but the ability wasn't psionic. We had nodes of a material in our brains that when stimulated by electrical impulses, such as nerve signals, could apply force to distant objects. The science was barely understood when the Ethereals came. Each time we repulsed them, we were weakened. The sixth time they returned we were too weak to fend them off. They bombed our planet into a radioactive deathball and made us into their personal slaves, removing our telekinetic abilities which they perceived as impure. Some, like me, are veterans. We remember life before servitude. Most are young. They know nothing but service for the Ethereals. The veterans will accept a chance to strike back against the Ethereals. The younger ones, about half will follow the lead of the veterans. The other half will be more difficult to persuade. What about you, Commander? I won't lead my people into this if all we do is exchange one set of chains for another."

Hackett frowned.

"It won't be easy. A lot of Humans hate your kind for your actions in the war. But I promise you that your people won't be exploited as long as I can help it."

He nodded.

"Thank you, Commander. I imagine that once the initial suspicion and mistrust is overcome our two peoples will work well against our common enemy."

Next to Hackett, Colonel Shepard frowned.

"Common enemy?"

Stewie seemed confused for a moment.

"You didn't really think one temple ship is all the Ethereals would send, did you?"

The panic between father and daughter was palpable.

"Don't worry, you have time. Usually the Ethereals wait. The second wave will come at a time when you have stopped watching the skies but are yet to regain your full strength. I estimate, about fifteen solar orbits until they return to Azu Synanda."

Shepard raised an eyebrow.

"Azu ..."

"Azu Synanda. The name we gave this planet. It means Sapphire Fortress."

"We call our planet Earth."

Stewie was silent for a moment.

"Earth? Why not call it Mud? Or Faeces? You Humans are certainly strange. But anyhow, the solution is simple."

Hackett merely looked expectantly at the hulking Adraa.

"The Ethereal Ones harbour their true strength in their minds. I don't mean their mental abilities, though those are impressive. I mean their plans. They are master manipulators. They never act without knowing exactly how their foe will react in any given situation. During our war with them every ship we detected, every foe we encountered was by their design. You have not only fought them off but emerged stronger than before. This is because people like you think sideways. You don't act according to their predictions and look what the result was. So if you truly want to defeat the Ethereals you must do the one thing they could never predict."

"And what is that?"

Stewie emphasised his point by clashing a meaty fist into the palm of his other hand.

"Attack."

###

XCOM Research Report: 15th November 2015

Head Researchers: Dr. Lieza Vahlen, Dr. Zengkun Chen

Team Leaders: Dr. Dinah Harper, Dr. Miles Adamson, Dr. Benjamin Joseph, Dr. Gembe Okelo

TOP SECRET: ANY UNAUTHORISED PERSONNEL READING BEYOND THIS POINT SUBJECT TO IMMEDIATE PUNITIVE ACTION

THIS DOCUMENT IS RF TAGGED ALL MOVEMENTS ARE BEING TRACKED

Alien device examination, project codename: Forge

The research team and the Engineering department had to work together to examine this colossal device found inside the Temple Ship. In the lower reaches of the vessel we found an enormous chamber, dimensions 5663m x 1264m x 917m, that was filled entirely with microscopic nanobots. By accessing a bank of computers overlooking the chamber we have determined its purpose - a shipyard. The premise of the chamber is simple. The required amount of raw resources are placed in the 'nano-soup' and the nanobots assemble them into a functional spacecraft. Using this chamber, we believe it should take less than an hour to manufacture a fully functional Firestorm. An additional advantage is that the nanobots can assemble alien alloys from a number of basic metallic elements, meaning the only constraint to how quickly we can build our own space going craft is how long it takes us to muster the required resources from terrestrial mines and the Elerium/Meld Synthesiser (see report, project codename: Manna). It does, however, appear that in order to deploy the finished ships the Temple Ship must have at least six kilometres of clear space between it and the ground directly below. This does not include water, meaning parking the ship over the ocean is a viable option. As well as copying alien designs it should be fairly simple to modify existing designs or even create our own. This is the piece of technology we need to jump-start a space faring civilisation.

Deciphering the schematics of the alien vessel templates held within has shown us several startling things about the way the aliens move around the galaxy. They have constructed immense objects referred to as 'Psionic Gates' hidden in the cores of gas giants throughout the galaxy that require a psionic to operate them. Considering we have many psionics on our staff this should pose little problem. This explains one mystery surrounding alien ship design - their vessels seem to be unnecessarily sturdy. Although this allows them to survive high altitude crash landings almost undamaged and grants them an incredible resistance to kinetic weapons it is now apparent the main function of this design is to allow the vessels to survive the crushing pressures at the centre of a gas giant.

One thing to note is that the Psionic Gates appear to be based off an older transport system known as Mass Relays, relics of a species that predates the Ethereals. These have been marked with the Ethereal sigil for 'ambush' and thus I cannot recommend they be used, if encountered.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: The Falconet is based in appearance off the WH40K Tau Empire's Hammerhead tank. Additionally I made up a different look for the Psionic Gates, I'm not just failing at describing a Mass Relay. There's a good deal of time skip covered in this chapter as well, these events are spread out over about four months. I want to just bull right into the meat and potatoes of this one.

###

AFGHANISTAN

The Falconet main battle tank skimmed across the sand, barely disturbing the loose material. It was held aloft by a gravity wave drive, hovering on a cushion of soft blue light. The tank was a white-beige colour, blending in with the sand with the XCOM 'Vigilo Confido' logo stamped on one side in dark red and the Mechanised Corps 'Bellator In Machina' logo on the other. The top turret of the hovering tank sat near the rear between two large grav units that provided the vehicle with thrust, its mounted long barrelled fusion lance set on one side of the round turret. From the turret the vehicle sloped down towards the nose, which spread outwards in a hammerhead shape to two underslung heavy plasma turrets. The entire thing moved silently, flanked by a quartet of the new model XCOM drones, the spherical shape of the alien drones replaced by a flat disc shape with an antenna on one side swept back at about forty five degrees and a pair of light plasma rifles slung under the main body.

Inside the tank's troop compartment, Colonel Jane Shepard looked around at her squad. Major Alenko, Captain Massani, freshly promoted Captain Williams, Lieutenant Taylor and Lieutenant Lawson. She was the squad's sniper, Alenko and Lawson were both Supports with Alenko as the team's medic, Williams was the Heavy, Taylor was the Assault and Massani was the MEC Trooper. Zaeed had taken a plasma round to the head but had somehow survived, leaving him paralysed from the neck down and with some serious scarring on his face. In order to keep fighting he had volunteered for the MEC programme. They were the squad she had taken with her on the Temple Ship. Every one of them had formed the bond only formed by soldiers in the same foxhole. They were just as much her family as Commander Hackett.

The driver glanced back into the troop compartment.

"Colonel? We're arriving in five minutes."

She nodded her thanks and turned to her men.

"Alright, this is what we have. Hyperwave scans picked up a dormant X-ray plasma bomb in a cave just ahead. By the looks of it another terrorist group have got their mitts on alien tech. Our job is to go in hard, eliminate any hostiles and recover the bomb. Questions?"

Predictably, Alenko had a question.

"Will we be prepared for non lethal takedowns?"

She shook her head.

"Negative. If they surrender we take them in, if they don't we shoot to kill. The drones will go in first and scout out the cave. If there's heavy resistance in the entryway the tank can always put a couple of fusion lance blasts down there and scare the crap out of them."

The squad sat in silence for the next couple of minutes until the driver announced they were at the target location.

"Out we go, ladies and lads."

As they disembarked, the drones had already secured the area. Much like their alien counterparts, the drones functioned by networked intelligence. Effectively, the more drones were on the network the smarter each drone was. With only four drones present their intelligence was quite low, meaning that they needed specific direction from the XCOM team. Shepard tapped the unit on her left forearm that controlled the drones, programming them to head into the cave under stealth. The ghost modules built into the hovering robots activated and they disappeared from view, outlined in blue on Shepard's HUD as they made their way into the cave. Four little boxes showing their camera feeds appeared above her arm, projected by holographic technology reverse-engineered from the alien entertainment system captured when XCOM raided the alien underground base.

Several heat signatures appeared in the thermal vision of the drones, resolving into actual light images as the pool of illumination round the corner in the cave became apparent. There were seven hostiles, all dressed in the typical homespun robes common to the natives of the region. The AK-47s they were carrying were less typical. Checking the thermal signatures again, she swore under her breath.

"Дерьмо! We've got a Thin Man."

She waved her arm in a circular motion.

"Move up and in. Switch night vision."

The team lowered their night vision goggles over their faces and moved into the cave. Unlike conventional night vision goggles, XCOM goggles used alien holo-imaging technique to project a Hyperwave radar image onto the inside of the goggles. The goggles themselves didn't have the bulky lenses of terrestrial night vision gear, instead merely being an opaque eye shield to display the image captured by the miniature hyperwave sensors mounted on either side of the head.

"Let's go."

The terrorists, and the Thin Man, were still unaware of XCOM's presence as the team slowly made their way in, Zaeed's lumbering MEC staying with the tank thanks to its horrendous lack of stealth capability.

Shepard crouched down in the darkness and took aim, her plasma sniper feeling comfortable in her hands. She had spent a long time perfecting her Double Tap technique, squeezing off two shots in rapid succession before the enemy could react, and she planned to put it to good use. She tapped in some commands on her battle computer, designating targets for each member of her squad. Hopefully they could take them all out in the first volley, but in the event that someone missed she had the drones to provide an extra gun or two.

"Now."

They fired at the same time. Green light filled the air as plasma saturated the unfortunate terrorists. Only one survived the first volley, diving for cover only to have a drone approach from behind him and blow him away.

Shepard walked over to the charred corpses, making a note to avoid the cloud of toxic gas released by the Thin Man's unfortunate demise.

"Damn, that was depressingly easy."

One of the drones beeped at her, letting her know that the immediate area was clear of hostiles. She nodded absent mindedly and set the drones to a standard patrol sweep as she crouched by the plasma bomb. It was thankfully still inactive, none of the charging nodes present, but still the fact that a Thin Man had been present was a little worrying.

"Base, this is Thor team. Area secure, send in the nerds."

Nodding in satisfaction, she headed outside, eager to make a beeline for the nearest bathtub.

###

TEMPLE SHIP

Hackett nodded in satisfaction as the first of XCOM's new Mantis class spacecraft descended majestically from the hangar. The ship was about the size of an alien Abductor, heavily armed with fusion lances, plasma cannon, upscaled versions of the blaster launcher and a primary armament of two heavy fusion lances that were in theory capable of blowing through the Temple Ship's outer hull. The ship's carrying capacity was forty eight XCOM operatives, eight MEC suits, four tanks and twenty eight drones of various descriptions, and also had a remote repair facility for interceptors. The vessel had a deltoid shape and a crew of five, a pilot, a co-pilot, a gunner, a navigator and a commander who was also the psionic required to operate the Ethereal Psionic Gates.

The Firestorms themselves had been redesigned significantly to match data from the shipyard. The new Inferno was the same deltoid shape as the Mantis but scaled down significantly, armed with a Fusion Lance, a pair of Plasma Cannon and a pair of scaled up blaster launchers, referred to as the Blaster Cannon. They had two crew, a pilot and a gunner, one of which had to be psionic. The Vindication, the first of the Mantis destroyers, was escorted by a full squadron of four interceptors as she dropped from the base of the Temple Ship, gravity wave drive flaring as she slowly decelerated to rest, submerged half a kilometre deep in the Pacific Ocean. The interceptors maintained station overhead, sensors sweeping the area for any hostile contacts.

Beneath the ocean, the nuclear submarine HMS Triton slowly approached the submerged craft. The UK was one of XCOM's most vocal supporters on the Council, along with Canada, Russia and Brazil, meaning that the majority of XCOM's personnel and resources came from those four countries. When XCOM had requested a submarine to help with crew transfer until they could build a dedicated underwater dockyard they certainly hadn't expected the HMS Triton.

An ageing Polaris nuclear submarine, the Triton was catapulted to fame among XCOM and the world when she managed to shoot down a formation of Abductors with her entire complement of SAMs. The resulting XCOM operation had involved eight squads to clear out the wrecks and three entire battalions of the British Territorial Army to quarantine the area. Thanks to that achievement the crew of the Triton were celebrities and the sub herself was a symbol of resistance against the aliens.

The submarine approached the submerged spacecraft, the five crew members donning pressurised rigid dive suits to make the one hundred metre swim to the lower hatch of the vessel. As the dive chamber slowly flooded, they glanced around, eager to get their hands on the most advanced piece of technology ever built by the human race.

The swim was uneventful, the crew swiftly transferring into the cockpit of the vessel and removing their dive suits as they slid into their seats. Slowly and majestically, the destroyer rose up and out of the ocean, gravity wave drive glowing blue and propelling them for the horizon.

###

SATURN PSIONIC GATE

Deep in the swirling storms and crushing pressures of Saturn's core, an immense structure was hidden. Formed around a glowing purple core with three rings rotating around it in different axes, the structure had a shape reminiscent of a doughnut intersecting a banana. The ring was easily large enough to comfortably fit the Temple Ship through, the crescent that met the ring where the spinning gyroscopic core was found easily forty kilometres end to end with the ring at least twenty across.

The forty two XCOM Inferno interceptors approached the gargantuan structure, the psionic members of the crew mentally probing the gate's systems. The rings around the core whirled and generated forks of purple lightening, stabbing out and flinging the interceptors through the gargantuan ring.

The scouts were away.

###

TUCHANKA

The Ganti Gorge was an ancient riverbed from a long forgotten time when Tuchanka had a functioning ecosystem. If one felt inclined to look closely enough they might be able to see the fossilised skeletons of the tiny creatures that had called the river home when it had been flash-boiled by the sixty megaton nuclear device that had formed the Entark Crater thirty clicks due east. Of course, Wrex wasn't in the mood for admiring fossils.

He had picked up a distress call from a couple of females boxed into the gorge behind a group of Green Crests and had led a team of warriors to recover them. Plasma weapons used heat as their medium of destruction, meaning that any wounds incurred were very difficult to regenerate. Krogan who had grown accustomed to small arms fire merely pinging off their heavy armour had a surprise coming when they discovered that even the smallest plasma weapon could pass through kinetic barriers without even registering them and melt their much vaunted armour into slag. In the first month or so of the attack Wrex spent more time healing than he did fighting. He quickly learned that cover was his new best friend.

Most chunks of rubble could only realistically take two or three hits from a plasma weapon before disintegrating, making forting up an exercise in futility. Through dint of sheer necessity the Krogan were forced to fight by staying mobile, dashing from cover to cover and picking the enemies off by flanking them or hitting them with sniper fire or biotics.

Wrex was okay with that if it kept him breathing. But if he turned blue and grew tits he was done.

He peered around the battlefield before muttering into his Omnitool.

"Aten, one Green Crest about forty metres ahead. Do you have line of sight?"

Moments later the growling voice of the team's sniper, Kellar Aten, replied.

"I have him in my scope."

Aten was a kid, barely with his head crests fused and yet he was a demon with a sniper rifle in his hands. Added to that he wasn't a headstrong glory hound like most Krogan, making him ideal for a mission where discretion was more important than racking up a high kill count. Wrex palmed a lift grenade as he glanced around, calculating. The sentry was in Aten's scope and Urdnot Dakk, the team's heavy gunner, was crouched in the rubble about twenty metres to the left, pressed up against the canyon wall with his incredibly powerful antique shoulder fired rotary autocannon, aptly named Dakk's Dakka. Off to the side was the other biotic on the team, Raik Masot, with the rocket launcher toting Urdnot Koll in the rear with Aten.

Nodding to himself, he tapped his Omnitool.

"Take him out."

The sentry's head exploded into a cloud of toxic gas as Wrex stood and hurled his lift grenade. He stayed standing, and the two Crests behind the rubble to his left were so determined to draw a bead on him they failed to notice the grenade until they were yanked off their feet. He dove for cover as they adjusted to their unexpected change in orientation and sent a hail of plasma bolts at him, moments later exploding into twin clouds of toxic gas as Dakk opened up with his Dakka, the blitz of heavy calibre rounds appearing more like a solid beam. It only took a half-second burst to finish off the Green Crests.

Wrex picked himself up off the ground, wincing as he rubbed his arm. These new aliens, the Green Crests in particular, seemed far less disoriented by biotic lifts than most Council pukes he used that trick on. In fact, he had seen one of them get hauled into the air, only to use its newfound height advantage to blow the head off the Krogan who had lifted it over his cover.

His men moved further up the canyon, nearing the last known location of the females they were headed to rescue when they were brought to a halt by a bestial roar.

"Berserker. Stand ready."

His men arranged themselves behind cover as a lumbering beast hove into view. The Berserker held an alien alloy shotgun that looked awkward in its hands, as if it was unfamiliar with the weapon. Certainly, they seemed to prefer the use of the enormous blades on their wrists. The Berserkers had a tendency to charge at anyone who wounded them, blasting away with their shotgun all the while. Fortunately their aim was so poor that the safest place to be during a Berserker charge was the location it was charging towards. That all changed when the beast got within melee range. There, it could dismember Krogan with almost consummate ease, and when it could jam the muzzle of its weapon into an enemy's chest it could demonstrate exactly how lethal the alloy shotgun was. Which was very.

"Warp it!"

Two blue orbs of crackling energy shot out from Wrex and Masot, hitting the creature in the chest. It roared in fury, peppering the atmosphere with shotgun rounds as it broke into a dead sprint.

"Koll."

A rocket streaked out, hitting the creature in the left shoulder and spinning it round, making it slump to the floor, listlessly shifting. Its shotgun flew clear of its grasp, clattering to Wrex's feet intact. The creature wasn't dead yet. Wrex held up a hand.

"Wait. I want to try something."

He bent down and picked up the alloy cannon. There was a faint tingling sensation in his fingers, then the weapon chirped at him. Frowning, he examined it. There was a small switch on the side of the weapon. He tapped it and with a cheerful beep the weapon reconfigured itself slightly, the barrel narrowing and elongating somewhat, a small item popping out of the base of the muzzle that emitted five brilliant green beams of light. Shrugging, Wrex centred the perfect pentagon of laser dots on the downed Muton and pulled the trigger.

The gun boomed.

Wrex swore as the recoil wrenched his arm back.

The Muton exploded.

Examining the corpse, Wrex swiftly formed the conclusion that instead of firing the alloy cylinder as a cluster of tiny flechettes, the weapon had propelled the entire thing in one piece out of its muzzle like Vaul's own ballista. Tapping the switch again, the barrel widened and shortened, the laser sight retracting and replaced with a small metallic ridge that ran under the length of the barrel. Feeling around the ridge, Wrex found the button that swung it forwards to form a wide bayonet, then retracted it again. The invader weapons usually self-destructed when the operator died. Wrex could only surmise that by taking the weapon before finishing off the Muton he had managed to circumvent that particular failsafe.

He turned to the rest of his team, who were eyeing his new toy jealously.

"Let's keep moving."

###

UNKNOWN PLANET

The Khar'Tobek was an old Batarian heavy cruiser snapped up by the Migrant Fleet almost sixty years ago. That she survived the descent mostly intact was nothing short of a miracle. The vessel had plowed into the side of an ancient jungle-encrusted starscraper, the building miraculously remaining upright and concealing the stricken cruiser from the air.

Tali gulped as she looked around the cruiser's cavernous cargo bay. There were almost sixty Quarians in the wreck, out of the original crew of three hundred and fifty, and she knew that less than half were from the Khar'Toba herself. There were about fourteen Marines protecting the crash site and maintaining order, less and less survivors trickling in as each hour passed.

Looking down at the item Reegar had thrust into her arms, she felt the familiar stirring of fear. She wasn't a Marine, just a young girl. She hadn't even embarked on her pilgrimage yet. Nevertheless, her father had taught her to handle a shotgun and he was in need of armed bodies.

She headed out of the cruiser and into the immense alien building they had found themselves in, heading down the stairs to one of the levels the survivors had claimed. The planet was so Quarian-friendly she didn't even need a hermetically sealed clean room, just some privacy and a portable field steriliser.

She sought out an unoccupied room and set up the field steriliser, orange beams sweeping the room and spraying a fine antiseptic mist that settled on every surface, cleansing it of any harmful microbes. Satisfied the room was clean, Tali laid out the combat exosuit on the floor, examining it critically. The suit had thick slabs of ceramic armour laid over a titanium wire grid, attaching the thick chest and limb protection to the underlying servoweave. She could recognise the high quality of the durable, lightweight armour but she wasn't sure about how thin it was over the midriff and joints, ostensibly for improved mobility. The face mask was completely opaque, her vision provided by an advanced HUD, with the shawl made of a carbon nanotube ballistic weave and featuring a small hole in the hood to allow a thick antenna to jut up and back from the side of the helmet. The armour came with a bulky back mounted thermal shield in place of kinetic barriers. The thermal shields were a uniquely Quarian innovation designed to protect crews from excessive heat during emergency engine maintenance. In theory, the device should be able to block two or three plasma shots before it was overwhelmed.

She glanced around one more time before removing her mask and shawl, gently laying them down on the ground as she caught her reflection in a glass window so rimed over on the outside it functioned as a perfect mirror. Big round eyes stared back at her from under a mass of onyx black hair, a select few of the straight locks forming curls and ringlets at the ends of her hair and granting it some impressive volume around her shoulders and back. She traced one finger over the points of silvery bioluminescence in a swirling pattern on her cheeks, the tiny points of light emitting their soft glow from within her smooth grey skin. Her father had once explained to her that on ancient prehistoric Rannoch Quarian hunting tribes had used the bioluminescent specks to keep track of the other members of their tribe. She could close her eyes and imagine stalking some ancient creature through the Rannochian desert, her head uncovered and a spear clutched in her hand as she trilled a hunting call.

Shaking her head to dispel the daydream, she set about removing her exosuit. Reaching up to her shoulders, she tapped a release catch that sent a cascade of commands to the clasps running along her spine. She closed her eyes and hissed as cool air blew eagerly down the slit in the back of her suit, bringing on a bout of shivering. Suddenly eager to complete the change, she finished the primary release, tapping the belt release. There was a significant overlap between the sections of her suit, the top section dipping down to fasten to her thighs while the rear section terminated just above her navel. The clasps around her upper thighs detached, then the crotch fastening released and she was able to wriggle out of the top of her exosuit.

Clad only in trousers, boots and a thin sleeveless cushioning vest, she crossed her arms and shivered, teeth chattering. She wasn't used to any temperature that wasn't the ideal skin temperature for Quarians of twenty one degrees and the cushioning garments commonly worn by children under their suits didn't provide much insulation. Not to mention life in the austere conditions of the flotilla meant that Tali, like most of her kind, hardly had an ounce of fat on her, what little she had collected on her chest to form her modest breasts.

She unclamped her boots, stepping out of them and putting them to one side, drawing in a sharp intake of breath as she searched for a smooth section of floor to rest the sensitive soles of her feet. She then lifted off the cushioning vest, rolling up the child's undergarment and placing it on the floor before starting to peel the electrodes off her bared torso. Each suit had a set of electrodes that monitored the health of the user, controlling the extensive suit-integrated antibiotic and medigel dispensers.

A slight rustle caught her attention and she froze, hand stealing for the weapons stacked up with her combat exosuit. Her hand curled round the haft of her shotgun as she closed her other hand around a small disc.

Springing into motion, she hurled the flash grenade round the corner, turning her head away and squeezing her eyes shut for the blast, then stepping smartly round the corner, weapon ready. Something blundered into her and she grabbed it, delivering an almighty bosh to the side of its head with her shotgun then kicking its legs out and coming down hard on top of the sprawled figure, shotgun muzzle pressed into its mask.

She paused for a second to identify her attacker. A Quarian. More specifically Prazza'Oros nar Rayya, her least favourite Quarian in the galaxy. Who had been hiding in an alcove watching her change. He babbled out phrase after phrase, most along the lines of 'put the gun down you crazy bitch!'. She shut him up by delivering a power punch to his gut before moving her arm to cover her chest, shotgun still jammed into his face.

"Keelah! You dirty, perverted, diseased bosh'tet! Go die of a fever!"

Her tirade was cut abruptly short by the cold kiss of a plasma pistol on the back of her neck.

CODEX - VIGILO CONFIDO

Although Vigilo Confido, loosely translated as Vigilance and Trust, is the official motto of the entire XCOM project it is used primarily to refer to the military branch of XCOM, the soldiers. The XCOM crest has quickly become an icon among the human race, with tales of these mighty warriors and their deeds spreading like wildfire on the Internet and media. Every XCOM soldier has Vigilo Confido tattooed somewhere on their body, the ritual treated as a form of initiation. Although initially a large number of XCOM recruits were killed by vastly superior alien forces, massive strides in equipment and weaponry meant that each soldier had durability and damage output that could equal an entire platoon of conventionally armed soldiers. Because of the complexity of producing this equipment XCOM adopted a strategy of focused, high speed strikes with six man squads drawn from a relatively small pool of veteran operatives, the end result being that by the end of the Ethereal War XCOM had fewer than fifty active combat personnel at any one time, armed with powerful plasma weapons and clad in the mighty Mk. II Archangel armour which features built in chitin plating, hardening fields and mind shields as standard and a far more advanced heat exchange system allowing for up to a kilometre of powered flight and almost indefinite hover. This was a massive improvement over the old Mk. I Archangel system which had highly limited fuel cells, useful only for short hops across the battlefield, and where the chitin vest and mind shield were separate items, cutting down on the amount of equipment a soldier could carry.

Ironically, it is only after the defeat of the Ethereals that XCOM have had both the means and the need to expand their current combat roster. With the end of organised X-ray activity, XCOM has been forced to fill the role of a more conventional military organisation, a role enabled by the capture of the Temple Ship and the massive influx of new resources it brought. As well as security on the Muton internment camp, XCOM has to respond to governments and superluminal organisations attempting to seize alien tech for use in their own agendas. Instead of small squads striking at weak and exposed alien targets XCOM is required to have a far more visible global presence, necessitating a rapid expansion of their combat roster as well as their scientific and engineering departments. Although it is true that XCOM only takes those who are a cut above the best of the best, their personnel levels have expanded to almost ten times their levels at the time of Operation Avenger.

The XCOM icon, and Vigilo Confido, have entered popular culture as a symbol of resistance against a powerful enemy, the emblem becoming a regular feature of graffiti. The rallying cry of Vigilo Confido has also been adopted by a number of less savoury organisations, including the neo-fascist paramilitary organisation Terra Firma and the rebels fighting in the Rwandan Civil War, as well as anarchist groups throughout Peru and the surrounding area of South America. Other uses of the XCOM motto and iconography include several tribute videos on YouTube and one particularly racy cheerleading squad 'thanking' the organisation for their work.

CODEX - BELLATOR IN MACHINA

Bellator in Machina translates as 'Warrior in the Machine' and initially was the motto of the MEC corps of XCOM but has been extended to cover the newly formed Mechanised Corps, encompassing MECs, SHIVs, XCOM drones, air interdiction units and more recently the Falconet gravity tank and Mantis destroyer. Most Bellator in Machina personnel are widely regarded as eccentric or even insane, with some even describing them as a cult since they seem to take a fairly liberal approach to cybernetic augmentation. Despite great strides in making the cybernetics very similar in appearance to organic parts, apart from artfully concealed 'seams' in the synthetic flesh designed to allow access to the inner machinery for maintenance or modification, willingly replacing a healthy body part with a cybernetic, or 'aug', is seldom understood by any that do not bear the Bellator in Machina crest tattooed on their bodies.

The combat arm of the Mechanised Corps are the most heavily augmented, with all four limbs replaced by augs that allow them to interface seamlessly with their war machines. MEC pilots and tank crew both require these interface augs to drive their vehicles and interface systems are offered to interceptor pilots as an alternative to the more conventional control panels, with combat data showing a definite improvement in pilot performance and reaction time with the interface system. Unfortunately the control systems for augs seem to repress psionic powers, meaning that Mantis crews and the newer space worthy Inferno interceptors require at least one unaugmented crewmember to operate the Ethereal psionic gates.

As well as their combat personnel the Mechanised Corps Engineers have begun to make use of augs, in particular artificial eyes and ears that can rapidly analyse damaged machinery by sight, thermal and sound to identify a problem and brain augs that allow them to tap into the Internet directly. Several of these 'aug-heads' have shown indicators of personality alteration as a result of these augs, making their use limited.

Despite the inherent advantages of aug technology XCOM are being highly cautious with its distribution. An aug arm can deform a titanium block using only its thumb and index finger and a neural aug enables the user to hack through any security system apart from one operated by another neural aug user. These potential military applications are all too easy to abuse, discouraging the Bellator in Machina team from making the technology available for treatment of paraplegics, amputees or those suffering a degenerative neurological disorder such as Alzheimer's. Added to that, all users require regular injections of Meld to prevent their bodies rejecting the augs, which is in itself a potent nanotechnological weapon if programmed incorrectly.

Unlike the Vigilo Confido symbol, Bellator in Machina has quickly become vilified by the press, who see XCOM's refusal to supply the technology for medical purposes while at the same time augmenting their soldiers and engineers extensively as double standards. Outside of XCOM augs are unpopular and mistrusted by most civilians they encounter and as a result they rarely socialise with outsiders and even non-auged XCOM operatives, further reinforcing their reputation as some sort of techno-cult.

CODEX - MUTARE AD CUSTODEAM

'Evolve to Defend', or Mutare ad Custodeam, is the XCOM branch that contains genetically modified soldiers. Although the technology to achieve this is very similar to the technology used by the augs of the Mechanised Corps, the end results are very different. Each soldier is modified with several improvements, including: psionic organs within the brain that boost resistance to psionic attacks, cause a feedback effect that assaults the neurones of their attacker and automatically sedates them if they fall victim to a mind controlling attack; vastly improved eyes that grant them phenomenal low light vision, almost total invulnerability to blinding or dazzling flashes of light, the ability to see in thermal, UV and X-ray and massively enhanced quality of vision; adaptive bone marrow organs that can consume small amounts of Meld to heal injuries in the field; hyper-dense muscle fibres that allow for incredible feats of strength, speed and stamina; heavily modified pituitary glands that allow for on the fly production of hormones that act as painkillers, chemical suppressants and combat stimulants; secondary organs to improve survivability as well as modifying the existing organs to be far more efficient and durable; and finally a bioelectric/mimetic cutaneous membrane that allows the user to sense nearby sources of electricity including life forms and also to project a Hyperwave stealth field around themselves that enables them to seamlessly blend in with the terrain. Unlike the MEC pilots of the Mechanised Corps who are regarded with suspicion and distaste the genetically modified warriors of Mutare ad Custodeam, oft referred to as 'Knives', are looked up to as superhuman paragons and undefeatable defenders of humankind.

The Knives are seen in a far more positive light than the Augs by popular media, due in no small part to the discovery that genetic modifications completed in utero require no Meld to stay in place. There have already been several publicised cases of pregnant women being told their unborn children had a life limiting genetic condition, only for them to be flown out to XCOM HQ and spend ten days in a gene tank. The first of these so called 'miracle babies' was born showing not only the lack of the motor neurone disease they had been diagnosed with but phenomenal overall health that left doctors baffled. This occurrence brought on a flood of women wanting XCOM to modify their children. At present the unit has settled with merely correcting severe genetic defects despite several influential families offering sums in the hundreds of millions for a genetically altered 'superbaby'.

CODEX: BELLO MENTIS

The most shadowy and mysterious of XCOM's subunits, the 'Warfare of the Mind', or 'Bello Mentis' psi-corps are known only to a handful of people outside XCOM. Doing anything to disrupt the shroud of secrecy surrounding the psionic units is punishable by the most severe measures available to XCOM and any psionics caught engaging in acts that compromise XCOM's psionic legality contract are also subject to extreme punitive action, the most harsh punishment enactable being lobotomisation. There are largely two classes of psionics, the 'natural psis' who are detectable with first generation psionic enhancers, and 'secondary psis' who have had latent powers activated by a psi-boosting stasis cycle. Natural psis tend to be an order of magnitude more powerful than secondary psis and tend to gravitate to command positions thanks to the prodigious intellect and willpower that are the hallmarks of a powerful psionic. In addition natural psis are the only ones that can be 'Gollop-Activated', using the ethereal device housed in the Gollop Chamber to further boost their already prodigious psionic powers, elevating them from potent psionic warrior to weapon of mass destruction. Gollop activation is a risky and painful process, meaning that very few volunteer for it.

Secondary psis have a basic arsenal of psionic abilities, and are referred to in XCOM nomenclature as Psi Adepts. They have the ability to merge their minds with other nearby psis, creating a low level diffuse hive mind that allows the soldiers to operate as an incredibly effective unit making on the fly tactical decisions in a split second as well as each soldier retaining the ability to act independently. This link also allows them to create psionic shields around any member of the squad, boosting their durability in a pinch. They can also directly assault an enemy's mind in a move known as a Mindfray attack, disorienting them and causing splitting pain that can outright kill weakened foes, as well as making them more vulnerable to further psionic assault. As well as these capabilities they can bestow mental fortitude on the other members of their squad via the mind merge, increasing their resistance to enemy psionics as well as boosting the strength of their own and calming panicking teammates. This effect is cumulative, meaning that large squads can pour the combined psionic potential into a single supercharged Mindfray attack that in theory should be able to instantly kill any organic target or forge a psionic shield that could protect a soldier from a direct hit from an interceptor mounted plasma cannon. The final ability they had was to create a host of illusions inside an enemy's head, driving them into a panic and making them flee or fire wildly at the hallucinations, more of a threat to their own side than the soldiers they were supposed to be fighting.

Natural psis have all these abilities and on top of that several other capabilities to turn the tide of a battle in their favour. They can seize control of an enemy's mind and project short lived but powerful telekinetic bubbles that shield the entire squad from weapons fire. They can also hurl psi lances, bolts of pure telekinetic force that can punch through armour and pulverise flesh. Using the mind merge, they can focus the will of their teammates on these attacks, a squad of six competent psis able to create psi lances that can level buildings, telekinetic fields that can turn away orbital strikes and take control of entire squads at a time. In XCOM nomenclature these agents are known as Psi Specialists.

The final level of psionic competency is that of the Psi Operative, or Gollop Activated Psi. These rare individuals can use all of the aforementioned psionic abilities as well as the ultimate psionic power, Rift. This attack tears open reality itself, the warping of the space-time continuum tearing apart anything caught within the rift and leaving only twisted ruins that glow with residual energy. Boosting a Rift through the mind merge is yet to be attempted, but in theory a mind merged Psi Operative should be able to level entire cities with a single thought and almost contemptuously brush aside most foes. Understandably, XCOM keeps its Psi Operatives on a very short leash.


	4. Chapter 4

UNKNOWN

Tali awoke very suddenly. The last thing she remembered was a gun pressed into her back, then a brief flash of pain and then nothing. At first she lay very still, her thoughts mostly along variations of 'am I dead?'. Cold air blowing over exposed skin reminded her she wasn't. Then she realised she was still half naked.

At that her thoughts took off in two different directions. The rational part of her screamed 'I'm topless! Infection!'. The blushing teenager part screamed 'I'm topless! Cover my boobs!'. She crushed down the part demanding she preserve her modesty. If she was in a hostile area, unarmed and unarmoured, she would need both arms for getting herself out of the situation and couldn't reserve one for hiding her chest.

She experimentally moved her limbs, then levered herself into a sitting position. Looking out at her surroundings, she observed a round white room, completely featureless aside from a large window. Peering out, she could see several strange looking creatures that appeared to be scientists of some sort. They appeared like very pale Asari, but with hair on their heads in place of crests. Intrigued, she tapped on the window, drawing the attention of the scientists. They turned and regarded her curiously, making her shrink back slightly.

One of the individuals was dressed differently than the others, wearing what looked like dark green sleeveless armour with one enormous shoulder pad containing a glowing green cylinder. The wearer of the armour was undoubtedly female, and unlike the others she had properly pointed earlobes poking out from under her white-blonde hair. She had a plasma pistol on her thigh and some sort of long plasma rifle on her back. Tali shrank back further. Plasma weapons ... Like the aliens that had attacked her fleet. Her brain kicked into overdrive, imagining the plethora of fates that could await her. Experimentation? Dissection? Dinner?

The one dressed like a soldier tilted her head to the side, taking a step towards one of the scientists as three more soldiers appeared in the room. Tali didn't know how she knew it but she was certain the soldiers were communicating somehow. The research team looked suitably intimidated, quickly acquiescing to whatever the soldiers wanted.

There was a hissing sound and the last thing she remembered before falling unconscious was meeting the inscrutable gaze of the lead soldier.

###

XCOM HQ

Hackett was not happy.

"Goddamnit Shepard! What were you thinking?"

Colonel Shepard leaned forward and growled at him.

"She isn't a threat. She's a scared teenage girl, for god's sake! Every psi on the base could sense it. We weren't going to stand around and let Vahlen the Butcher stick sensors in her brain!"

Hackett slammed a fist on the table.

"Enough! You're skating on thin ice as it is!"

He dropped into a seat and sighed.

"You're the most powerful Psi Operative we have and your body's so jammed with alien tech it's worth billions in biotechnology. A lot of powerful men on the Council want to see you dead or on a dissection slab. EXALT are still around and would very much like to get their hands on you through their puppet politicians. Every time you pull a stunt like this the voices get louder and my job gets harder."

The Colonel leaned back and closed her eyes.

"I know. And I'm trying to be careful but I couldn't in good conscience let Vahlen do what she does to that little girl."

"Little alien girl."

"Little girl nonetheless."

Hackett sighed.

"Alright, we'll do it your way. Dr. Vahlen isn't going to be happy."

###

UNKNOWN

The next time Tali awoke she felt comfortable. She mumbled something and turned onto her side, burrowing further into the softness of pillow and mattress, her arm reflexively tightening the blankets about her sleepy form.

Some minutes later she came abruptly to consciousness as memory came flooding back. She sat bolt upright, crying out as she saw one of the strange aliens, the one with the pointed ears, sitting beside the bed she had been sleeping on. Looking wildly around, she observed that her surroundings looked like a small bedroom.

The alien raised a hand, making what she assumed were soothing noises. She noticed that her clothing had changed, to some sort of loose short sleeved top over her suit trousers. Her observations were cut short by a series of explosive coughs. Infection ...

She whimpered as she felt her body wracked by the coughing. Then suddenly she was pinned still and she felt the familiar pinch of a needle in her arm. Less than a minute later the coughing had stopped quite abruptly. Blinking tears out of her eyes she scrambled into a sitting position, looking fearfully at the alien. The creature's facial expressions were quite Quarian-like, though she knew not to trust them. For all she knew the face she made when she was grieving was the face they made when having an orgasm.

The alien held up a reassuring hand, showing she wasn't holding a weapon. Of course, Tali would have to be blind to miss the plasma pistol and combat dagger on the thighs of its armour, but she appreciated the gesture nonetheless. She stiffened as the alien reached out and it started making strange cooing noises as it slowed its movements, pausing at the first sign of her flinching back. Eventually she found herself pressing up against the wall, fearfully watching the approaching hands as the alien knelt at the side of the bed she was occupying. Purple light flickered in the corner of her vision as soft fingertips came to rest on her temples.

She sat in the back of the Skyranger, nervously checking her assault rifle, Rookie Shepard. Her leg idly jogged up and down as the dropship came in for landing and she was out of her seat almost before it had touched down, charging out into the streets of Munich on their first encounter with alien forces.

She scanned the battlefield through the scope of her sniper rifle, Sergeant Shepard, or Lola. The ominous bulk of the downed UFO was a couple of hundred metres away, the outcropping of rock she was perched on giving her a perfect view. Squaddie Williams stood, rocket tube on her shoulder, and fired, blasting away a significant section of the alien vessel's hull and giving her an angle inside as Corporal Alenko called targets. Her rifle barked, blowing the foot off a Sectoid and toppling the little thing, its screeches of pain cut short as Alenko hit it with the Arc Thrower.

She bit back a curse as she stowed her sniper rifle on the back of her new carapace armour, Lieutenant Shepard. Her pistol materialised in her hand as her blade was unsheathed, the hideous purple-black insect screeching a challenge. She sprinted across to a vehicle, peering over and noticing an eight year old boy clutching a large stuffed animal. She shouted for him to run for the dropship even as the Chryssalid charged, bowling her over and stabbing into her shoulder even as she drove her blade into its skull.

She winced and gripped her laser sniper tighter, Captain Shepard, phantom pains ghosting in her recently healed shoulder as she jerked a hand and sent Bales ahead. The man ducked into cover only to have it ripped apart by a concerted barrage from the Mutons guarding the alien's underground FOB, his scatter laser slipping from lifeless fingers even as the Mutons were felled by a barrage of laser fire from the unit's SHIV, Eric. She roared in anguish as her beam neatly cauterised the hole she left through the lead Muton's brain.

Pausing only to kneel and close the eyes of her dead comrade, Major Shepard waved her remaining troops into position either side of the shield door. The giant alien mech had killed one of her squad and put another out of commission, forcing her to leave Kaidan behind to help out the wounded woman. That merely left her, James and Zaeed to take whatever was in the cockpit of the overseer UFO. James triggered the shield door and she instantly reached out, her psionic power battering its way into the mind of the nearest Muton Elite. The two hulking bodyguard aliens shot each other up even as Zaeed thundered into the room, slamming his kinetic strike module into the strange four-armed alien in the centre.

Sighting down her plasma sniper, she centred the crosshairs on the head of the Über Ethereal. A final plasma bolt blew through its ornate helm, making its death scream echo across the room and take out any Ethereals left on the bridge. Ignoring the sharp pain in her gut, Colonel Shepard limped over to the control orb, using the last vestiges of her psionic power to mind control her comrades back aboard the Skyranger. She reached out and shut down the ship's black hole engine, steering it towards XCOM HQ. Exhausted, she slumped down, a spreading numbness in her stomach telling her she had little time left. She toggled her comm.

"Sir? Sir, I'm hurt bad ..."

Gasping, Tali pulled back from what was undoubtedly a mind meld.

"Keelah ..."

The alien, Shepard, gave her a shy smile.

"Hello Tali."

###

XCOM Research Report: 20th December 2016

Head Researcher: Colonel Jane 'Lola' Shepard

TOP SECRET: ANY UNAUTHORISED PERSONNEL READING BEYOND THIS POINT SUBJECT TO IMMEDIATE PUNITIVE ACTION

THIS DOCUMENT IS RF TAGGED ALL MOVEMENTS ARE BEING TRACKED

Extraterrestrial Interrogation, project codename: Nomad

Well, this is my first time writing one of these, so apologies if I don't get it quite right. After we smoothed over some of the errors in first contact protocol talking with Tali has been an illuminating experience. Not only is she a remarkable engineer she has provided insight into an entire galactic community, one we never realised existed.

Tali is a member of the Quarian species. Her people have been living aboard a ramshackle fleet of spacecraft for the past three hundred years after an AI uprising drove them from her homeworld, called Rannoch. Because of their unique biochemistry they are yet to find another world to settle on. After living for three hundred years in space their immune systems have atrophied to the point of nonexistence, meaning a simple cold could prove fatal. Without an injection of Meld it is highly likely that she would have succumbed to any one of a number of terrestrial diseases. In order to prevent this her people wear fully sealed HAZMAT suits all the time.

Approximately two terrestrial months ago the entire Quarian flotilla was shot down by the Ethereal X-rays and forced to make crash landings on a previously unexplored world. From what Tali has told me X-ray activity among the downed Flotilla closely matches that of the X-rays during the initial stages of their invasion of Earth.

Tali also told me of an unknown element that forms the basis of almost all their technology called 'Element Zero'. This element apparently has the ability to alter an object's mass when a charge is passed through it. She also claims that certain individuals with Element Zero nodules in their bodies may develop telekinetic powers - I reckon it is this element Stewie was referring to when he said that pre-Ethereal Mutons had telekinesis.

Regardless of what else may come of this meeting we have identified a definite location of X-ray activity. I would recommend heading there and establishing a base immediately to oppose the Ethereal activity. Also, we have almost two hundred mothballed sets of carapace armour and laser weapons - I personally recommend modifying them for the Quarians to use.

###

XCOM HQ

Bemused, Tali followed Jane as the alien spoke in rapid fire Keelish to her. She still felt incredibly strange without her suit on, but Jane assured her she wouldn't get an infection. Something about Meld, or Thin Man Poison, or something. She scratched her nose, the novelty of being able to just put her fingernails on her face instead of having to use her suit's inbuilt nerve stimulator to shock the itch into submission still showing no signs of letting up. She tensed up reflexively as she saw a Sectoid scuttling along, then remembered Jane's explanation that they were merely being controlled by another, far crueller species when they were hostile. In fact, some of these ... XCOM ... seemed to have attributed names to the Sectoids.

"Ah, here we are."

They stepped into a small room and Tali's jaw dropped. A set of Quarian armour was in the centre of the room. She could instantly tell that the kit was far more advanced than any exosuit she had ever seen. The olive green plates with the XCOM logo on the chest seemed to beckon to her and she stepped up to the armour, examining it.

"Wow, this is amazing!"

Jane smiled at the young girl's enthusiasm.

"We originally intended just to convert one of our old sets of carapace armour to accommodate your double-jointed legs but the engineers got carried away as usual. Under the plating you've got a chitin anti-stab layer, then a fully sealed nanofibre underlayer that links with the helmet to form a hermetic shell. If you combine all three layers, they should be able to absorb as much damage as the outer shell of Mk. 1 Titan armour, which is a lot. We're working on conversions for the rest of the carapace armour sets we have, and dusting off some of our old las weapons. They should give your people a leg up against the Ethereals."

Tali blinked a couple of times, searching for the words.

"Why?"

With a sad smile, Shepard rested a hand on Tali's shoulder.

"Nobody deserves the Ethereals. Least of all you."

###

UNKNOWN PLANET

Cursing, Kal'Reegar grabbed his rifle as he sprinted towards the crude firebase his Marines had established at the base of the tower. The Khar'Toba's proximity sensors had picked up a rapidly approaching contact and Kal would be damned if he was going to let those aliens get any of his people.

"Come on you lazy bosh'tets! On your feet!"

The marines rushed towards the firebase, mismatched assault rifles and shotguns clutched in hands as they dug in and waited for the coming attack.

The alien ship hovered above the clearing and disgorged a group of the strange large-headed creatures that reminded him of Salarians. Plasma fire started flying at his position, melting through the thick barricades with disturbing rapidity. Kal rallied his men.

"Suppressive fire! Pin them down!"

Where the aliens may have the advantage of firepower, Reegar and his marines had the advantage where it came to durability. By crudely modifying their kinetic barriers into thermal shields they could each take a single volley of plasma fire before needing to recharge, while the aliens had no barriers and could barely take three rounds apiece before falling. The aliens fell into cover, one of them being caught in the open and blown apart with a number of shotgun blasts. A familiar purple light caught Kal's eye.

"They're mind merging!"

His cry of warning was followed moments later by a a volley of pinpoint accurate plasma fire that skimmed the edge of the barricade and took the top of one of his Marines's head off. Cursing, he tried to draw a bead on the mind merged aliens but he couldn't pin them down.

His orders were cut short as with an earth shattering slam, something landed in front of his position. He barely had time to look at the ten foot tall figure before a fusillade of energy bolts sprayed over the aliens, obliterating both them and the cover they were sheltering behind.

The figure turned and, to Kal's surprise, he saw an alien head sticking out of the hulking battlesuit that somehow spoke to him in Keelish.

"Sorry if those goddamn Sectoids scuffed your FBCs. Which one of you is Reegar?"

CODEX - SHIV

SHIVs, or Super Heavy Infantry Vehicles, are autonomous drones designed to provide heavy fire support to XCOM squads in the field, as well as providing a number of different functions.

The basic design of the SHIV was never put in production, the first SHIV variant actually used being the laser armed GOLIATH class. The Goliath could take up to 18 gigajoules of plasma fire before becoming compromised and could be used by the troops as mobile cover. With an extensive software update the SHIVs could even use barrages of suppressive fire to pin down enemy units. The effectiveness of the GOLIATH class cannot be understated - in one notable incident a single GOLIATH SHIV with a support soldier sheltering behind it took out three Mutons and a Cyberdisc, allowing the rest of the team to extract several civilians unharmed. Another advantage of the GOLIATH was that it was by its very nature impervious to psionic attacks, making it a popular choice when clearing out UFOs that contained Sectoid Commanders and Ethereals.

With the advent of the Archangel pattern armour, and the shift in tactics to a more fluid pattern of aerial attack, a new form of SHIV was required. The Mechanised Corps delivered in the form of the LIGHTNING class SHIV, a plasma cannon mounted on an antigravity chassis. Equal in durability to the GOLIATH yet harder to destroy thanks to its high speed and evasive pattern, the LIGHTNING class proved to be highly effective in a hit and run role, swooping in, unleashing a fusillade from their plasma cannons then retreating only to approach from another angle, keeping enemy forces off balance and off the initiative.

After Operation Avenger and the subsequent capture of the Temple Ship, SHIVs began to be phased out in favour of XCOM combat drones, generally seen as superior thanks to their quasi-AI programming and compact size. Nevertheless LIGHTNING class SHIVs in particular will no doubt be in service for many years to come as firmware upgrades allow them to keep pace with the rival drones. Whether to use SHIVs or drones is purely down to the squad leader's personal preference.

CODEX - DRONE

The XCOM drone is a recent development based on SHIV technology combined with research into the alien drones and Sectopod class combat platforms. The drones are linked in a networked intelligence that makes them more intelligent the more drones are on the network, meaning that larger squads will have access to more advanced tactics and be generally more adaptable to changing battlefield dynamics.

The XCOM drones come in three models. The first model is the utility drone, serving a role similar to that of the X-ray drone of mobile light fire support and repair functions. The main body of the drone consists of a shallow domed disc about sixty centimetres across, with an antenna sticking up from the left side of the disc and swept back at about forty five degrees. Underneath the drone's main body is slung a rotating pod that contains the drone's systems - a sensor cluster, twin linked plasma pistols and an integrated Arc Thrower that can be used to incapacitate organics, hack robotic targets or as a repair torch for reforming damaged armour layers on other drones, SHIVs, MECs or vehicles. The second type, the aptly named gun drone, has the same general shape yet different equipment in its underslung pod. The twin linked plasma pistols have been replaced with light plasma rifles and the sensor cluster contains a targeting laser, enabling pinpoint accurate fire at surprisingly long range. The drone also contains two plasma grenades in a magnetic sling that it can hurl great distances. These munitions can be replaced with needle grenades or toxin grenades if necessary. The final type is the heavy drone. With twice the diameter of the other two types, one metre twenty across, the heavy drone is designed to provide punishing mobile firepower. Each drone can be outfitted with a single weapon from a wide pool, including heavy plasma, SHIV plasma, plasma sniper and blaster launcher, and accompanies that weapon with a suite of light, thermal, hyperwave and X-ray cameras enabling them to spot targets even when hiding behind objects or using hyperwave cloaking technology.

Each drone is lightly armoured due to the weight constraints of their miniaturised gravity wave thrusters but they have sophisticated fire-tracking algorithms that allow them to extrapolate the direction of fire from hostile weapons and stay out of the crosshairs, drastically reducing the chances of an enemy landing a successful hit. Some newer models of MEC have a docking pad for a utility drone on their backs, allowing the drone to recharge, repair and rearm, and all Falconets, Infernos and Mantises have numerous docking ports for utility drones. In addition heavy drones can be airdropped from great height, allowing them to neutralise key enemy defences and personnel to throw any hostile force into disorder before the actual squad is deployed.


End file.
